Some children born of rape by Interahamwe militia during the Genocide against the Tutsi, have said that they are recovering from depression thanks to a new community-based healing approach dubbed "socio-therapy’.

Hilarie Niyongira, a mother from Byimana village, Kimaranza cell of Ririma sector in Bugesera was born in 1995. She was conceived out of rape that was meted out on her mother by militiamen.

"I grew up with acute depression because in the community and at school people used to tell me I am a daughter of Interahamwe but I had not never discovered why they were calling me so yet my mother was a genocide survivor. This also affected my performance in class,” she said.

She was sharing testimony, on Tuesday September 28, during the visit of a European Union delegation to Bugesera district where the officials witnessed stories of change resulting from healing dialogues initiated across the district.

It was also part of the celebration of the International Day of Peace and the opening of the ‘Unity and Reconciliation Month.’

"Due to the trauma, I wanted to live alone. When I was growing up, I was always distressed by not knowing my father and any members of my father’s family. I did not want to study and I finally dropped out in senior four.

I had no knowledge of what happened because my mother and members of my mother’s family always went silent whenever I would ask where or who my father was. Their trauma would instead worsen,” she recounted.

Niyongera said that later, her maternal aunt disclosed to her that her mother was raped by Interahamwe during the Genocide and was told that "she was raped by many men”.

"This means my mother doesn’t know who impregnated her and I am the product of that rape,” she said.

She said she grew up in another family in Rwamagana district until she rejoined her mother in 2012 in Bugesera.

"I am now married with three children,” she said, adding her depression is progressively healing thanks to the new group-therapy locally known as Mvura Nkuvure, which can be loosely translated as ‘let us heal one another’.

The healing process has three components; mental health, social cohesion and livelihoods as a holistic approach to post-traumatic healing.

The approaches to healing, include community-based socio-therapy, multi-family therapy that focuses on people in conflicts related to genocide effects, resilience and intergenerational trauma therapy approaches.

The programme is built on groups’ capacity where people come together for 15 sessions – one per week.

 Each group therapy is composed of 15 people.

 Socio-therapy has phases such as safety where people look back to what they have been going through, what has destroyed their safety and how they can build their safety,

This is followed by building trust destroyed by lack of safety owing to circumstances the victim went through.

People discuss in groups and look for solutions to help members of the group.

"Through these discussions, I put myself in the shoes of my mother and understood her pain and trauma. Then I started to tell her that we are in it together and that I can even help in healing her pain since I am also healed.”

She said that her mother has since joined therapy and they are walking the journey together.

"One step at a time, she has started telling me what happened to her.”

Reconciliation village

The socio-therapy approach is in addition to Mbyo Reconciliation Village with 54 families in Mayange sector.

The village is composed of genocide survivors and perpetrators of the genocide and are jointly running income generating activities such as agriculture, livestock and basket weaving as a way of fostering unity and reconciliation as well as economic transformation.

Richard Mutabazi, the mayor of Bugesera district said that initiative supported by Prison Fellowship Programme and Interpeace organization will heal many people who still suffer effects of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi effects.

"This will the community live in unity and reconciliation while benefiting from socio-economic development,” he said.

According to a survey jointly conducted by Interpeace and Prison Fellowship in collaboration with the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) and Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), 44 per cent of the genocide survivors aged over 45 years’ experience recurrent depression while 22 per cent of the perpetrators who have served their sentence and been released for these crimes battle the same in Bugesera district.

Bishop John Rucyahana, the Chairman of the board Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR) said that the healing approach could be scaled up in more districts across the country following the pilot phase in Bugesera.