Trauma partly caused by mismanagement of survivor’s support

HUYE – The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Jean Pierre Karabaranga, has expressed frustration over the mismanagement of programmes meant to help vulnerable Genocide survivors. Karabaranga said that while the country has made steady progress in different sectors in the last 16 years, the legacy of genocide continues to manifest itself in form of trauma especially among vulnerable orphans and widows. He was speaking during the official closure of the mourning week at the National University of Rwanda on Tuesday. “Many school head teachers receive funds from the Fund for Genocide Survivors (FARG) to help students acquire basic scholastic materials but these funds in most cases end up being misappropriated. This has negative repercussions on the beneficiaries in many cases leading to trauma,” he said. He added that some local leaders and other people charged with responsibility to provide housing for vulnerable survivors have not executed their duties as expected, but have instead swindled the funds. “This year we must fight such individuals, we must expose them, we should not keep silent, they should be punished as neglect of survivors is known to increase trauma cases,” said the visibly irked official. The mourning week at the university was wrapped up with a ‘walk to remember’ that saw hundreds of students and staff staging a peaceful demonstration around Butare town. The University Rector, Professor Silas Lwakabamba, said that the commemoration week should be a period to take time to reflect on how and why such a tragedy took place so that proper measures are taken to ensure that such a tragedy is never repeated. He disclosed that research on the university’s role in the preparation and execution of the 1994 Genocide is in the offing and researchers will be expected to propose ways of correcting mistakes made in the past. The Rector said that as part of its contribution towards the fight against genocide ideology, the university introduced a compulsory course in peace and civic education for all first year students. Over 500 students and staff are believed to have died during the Genocide at the University. The massacres were committed by students, teachers and soldiers from the nearby military camp, according to survivors. Ends