When it comes to living the life of a refugee and social stigma, Erica Gateka Matasi has seen it all.

Matasi was born in 1992, in her native Burundi. However, the following year, her entire family was forced to flee the civil war in her country to seek refuge in Zambia. She was just a year old.

That’s not all. She was born with strabismus, a rare eye disorder in which the eyes do not line up in the same direction, and therefore do not look at the same object at the same time. 

"I would look at people and they would look elsewhere because they did not know I was looking at them,” she explains, adding that "it can be very, very discouraging, especially for a girl.” 

She became conscious of the condition when she was ten. 

"I remember that day very well. I was coming back from school and met a group of kids, and they started laughing at me, and I wondered why. Then they told me "why are your eyes like this, pointing to my right eye.”

Out of love, her family had never told her about it. 

The encounter with the kids was to be a turning point in Matasi’s life:

"From that time I never wanted to meet people, I could not greet people because I was always scared of their first reaction,” she explains:

"Every time, people would think I’m not talking to them. I would actually have to tap you to draw your attention to me. Sometimes we would be just two of us in a room, but still someone wouldn’t be sure I’m talking to them. So it really broke my self esteem.”

Breaking the chains

Having failed to enroll for university in Zambia because of financial challenges, she returned to Burundi in 2011, and enrolled at the International Leadership University in Bujumbura for a degree in Business Administration majoring in accounting. 

If there is one thing that followed her to Burundi from Zambia, it was the stigma arising from her eye condition. 

"At the back of my mind, I knew that I had to rise above my predicament and believe in myself,” she explains. 

She was lucky to get a mission hospital in Gitega that offered a correctional procedure on her right eye. 

She recalls that the procedure was rather painful as the doctor used local anesthetics, besides not having all the right equipment. 

The successful operation was just the right confidence boost Matasi had yearned for all her life.

"What I remember is that I took so many selfies. I think I used to take selfies every second because it is something that I had never done before. Because of my eye condition, I had been running away from every photo opportunity because I didn’t want people getting curious about my eyes.”

Doing it for others

Increasingly, she developed deeper empathy for other girls suffering in different circumstances. 

"There are so many girls out there who do not believe in themselves, who do not believe that they can do something, just because they don’t have this or they don’t have that.”

Matasi therefore embarked on a process of trying to be of use, of using the little she had to be the change she wanted to see in her community. 

"I told myself I know English, I can speak, I am intelligent, so I can.”

In fact, she developed immense interest in giving public speeches. 

"Now I could speak to people publically but before, I never wanted to meet or speak to people because I dreaded the first sight they would have of me and the questions that would follow.”

At her university, Matasi started working with young people, "because I realized that in Burundi there were so many things that were not done for young people –they needed role models for example. 

Something that really affected me personally was the issue of cheating in class for example. Young people really found it okay to cheat, and it was hard for me to understand how people could be proud of results that they cheated.”

She started giving fellow students talks about cheating in exams.

"I wanted to be that example in my university, not to cheat but be the first in class and I achieved it. I knew that it’s all part of believing in yourself, which is very crucial.”

Equally crucial for her was to start with the little she had: 

"Burundi is a French-speaking country with few people that speak English. It needed people who could invest their time in teaching other young people English. That’s how I begun. I started using what I had to be a role model.” 

Soon, she was inviting young people from other universities to her own, and sharing with them the vision about being the change that they want to see in their communities, in their schools and their lives. 

From that, a small NGO that brought together young people from different universities was initiated. 

"We were all students with no money, so we asked how are we going to run this? But we believed in one thing; there is always something that you have in your hands that you can use to make a small difference.” 

Their very first activities were writing and photography. They would collect and write stories about young people who are making a difference in Burundi, and publish them on social media.

Starting #IAmHer Rwanda campaign

Matasi graduated with a Bacherlors in Business Administration last year, but was forced by the political tensions in the country to flee to Rwanda. 

Earlier this year, she applied for a fellowship program of the Moremi Initiative of Women’s Leadership in Africa (MOREMI) in Ghana, and was selected to represent her country. She spent a month at the fellowship.

Upon her return from Ghana, and as part of the requirements from the training, she was supposed to start a one-year project that might get funding from the organizers.

Initially, her idea was to open a youth center in Mahama Refugee Camp, "but I found it’s not as easy as it seems to be, especially when it’s not your country.” 

"Amidst all this I was discouraged and just wanted to stop everything, but then I remembered that I had a smaller part of the project, and that smaller part of my project was to celebrate the international day of the girl child with girls in the refugee camp.”

Soon, she brought together a few young Rwandans and shared the vision. "I told them I had no money whatsoever, but I believed in using whatever talents we had.”

The #IAmHer Rwanda campaign is inspired by the annual global celebration of the UN International Day of the Girl Child, which falls on October 11 every year. 

The day gives people and international organizations the opportunity to raise public awareness of the different forms of discrimination and abuse that many girls around the world face. 

Rwanda usually joins the rest of the world to celebrate the day with various activities. 

"This year we would like to take a step further by not just celebrating a day, but having an entire week of activism for girl issues in Rwanda and the region, hence the #IAmHer campaign,” Matasi explains. 

Dubbed "Speak Solutions for Girls’ Issues and Invest in her Potential”, the week will consist of a series of media events and positive activism aimed at openly discussing solutions to issues faced by the girl child.”

Between October 5-10, there will be writing competitions for high school students, live radio and TV interviews and debates, airing or documentaries, and social media activism all aimed at addressing problems of the girl child. 

"#IAmHer represents what a girl is and could become if only we invested in her potential. She is that leader, that mother, that president …she is more. She is me, she is you, she is all us,” explained Matasi. 

"I am in Rwanda and so I have to do something that is relevant to the community. After all, I am a girl. It doesn’t matter where I am. I should be a change agent wherever I am.

I am in Rwanda now, where girls are affected by so many things and I’m one of those girls who have been able to rise above those challenges and make something out of it for my life somehow, so I want other girls to be able to have that too. 

We are a team of passionate young people working with HopeEthiopia-Rwanda to add our voice to empowering the girl in Rwanda. We are simply complimenting the already existing commemoration of the international day of the girl child in Rwanda with a week of activism.”