As some genocide convicts are completing their terms in prison and rejoining communities in the midst of prevailing trauma among genocide survivors, considerable reconciliation efforts should be made to ensure social cohesion.

This is one of the aspects that have been taken into consideration in a project called "Reinforcing community capacity for social cohesion through societal trauma healing” launched on Thursday, October 15, 2020

The 18-months programme, set to be piloted in Bugesera District, is funded by the European Union to a tune of €2.5 million (Rwf2.8 billion).

Trauma is a severe emotional or mental distress caused by a deeply distressing or life-threatening event; in this case, loss of loved one(s), for instance, during genocide or related cases such as rape.

A study carried out by the Ministry of Health in partnership with the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), whose findings were released on December 6, 2018, revealed that trauma prevalence among genocide survivors was at 27.9 per cent.

More than a million people were massacred in just a three-month during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, leaving survivors in horror and grief-stricken.

Those who developed the programme say that trauma affects the ability to open up, receive and trust others, and it is a major cause of inter-community suspicions, especially between groups of genocide survivors and former genocide prisoners.

This, they argued, has limited people’s ability to cooperate in shared, mutually beneficial economic activities.

Speaking during the launch of the initiative, Fidele Ndayisaba, Executive Secretary of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) said that there is still need to join hands and efforts towards social cohesion and mental health challenges.

"This programme which proposes innovative, holistic approaches that simultaneously promotes mental health, social cohesion and supports sustainable livelihoods is a new contribution to our reconciliation journey,” he said.

He added: "Mental health well-being leads to a positive attitude towards reconciliation including openness to others and those are prerequisite to economic well-being.”

The programme will be implemented in collaboration with Prison Fellowship Rwanda, which Ndayisaba described as a long-time and experienced partner in psychosocial healing in Rwanda; Interpeace which is an international organisation for peace building, and NURC.

Bishop John Rucyahana, the Chairman of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, said: "The 1994 Genocide against Tutsi did not only claim more than a million people in a hundred days – in the shortest recorded time in history – but it also tore apart who we are.”

"It disturbed, derailed the flow of our dignity, and our social fabric was so damaged. But the soul of Rwanda survived,” he said.

Such a situation, he said, underscores the importance to mark and notice the value of this healing and social cohesion programme.

"It is a good and relevant complementary initiative...and we believe that it will succeed since it fits in the Government priorities to build sustainable peace and social cohesion,” he said.  

Targeted populations

Interpeace President, Scott Weber, said that the first target is on supporting individuals who may be struggling with difficulties such as anxiety and trauma, and the communities within which they work to ensure an effective reintegration.

The second, he said, are young people in schools, or children who are outside the schools "because we know that there is a real phenomenon of intergenerational transmission of trauma where young people who did not live through the genocide still have post-traumatic stress disorders or other impacts that are quite significant.”

He indicated that the third category is prisoners and ex-prisoners.

"We know that over the next few years there will be a large number of prisoners who will be released and who need to become productive members of the society once again, who everyone hopes, Government first, and of course the communities, that they don’t go back into prisons through new crimes,” he said.

"After 26 years of being in prison [for some], they   haven’t witnessed the tremendous changes that the Rwandan society has gone through. And so they need to be able to be brought into the reintegration process in communities,” he said.