HUYE- Moments after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Violette Mukabahenda, was left hopeless following the death of many of her relatives, siblings and friends.“Life was very hard and bleak,” the 25-year old recollects.“I could not understand how someone could end up alone when they used to have a big family”.Mukabahenda’s life started to take shape when she joined the Association Duharanire Kubaho, mainly comprising Genocide orphans.“There are moments when you feel lonely, when you are desperate....but as you get together with others, you feel relaxed as if you have put down a heavy load,” she says.“The association is a new found family for me”.The story of Duharanire Kubaho started in 2004 when young Genocide survivors- many of them orphans- who had just concluded secondary school came together in a bid to seek ways of survival. Even the name of their association illustrates their first goal: struggling for survival.The association also seeks to preserve the memory of Genocide as a key element in getting lessons from the past to shape the future.Currently, the association has about 100 members for whom it has become a new family.Mukabahenda joined the association in 2007 after completing her secondary school studies.“Being part of this family helped me to discover that there are other young people whom we share a history,” she says.“You feel free to express your concerns as you are sure that you will be understood and supported. Together, we make up a strong unit; it is like regaining a lost family. I have found new sisters and brothers”.Joining others after the Genocide encouraged her to keep moving on and enabled her to regain hope for a bright future. Otherwise, she says, life would have been a misery.“Advice, comforting words and consolation from others all played an important role in giving my life a new direction,” Mukabahenda observes.Although the challenges of poverty, loneliness and desolation were a heavy burden for the orphans, they endeavoured to overcome the consequences of one of the most cruel and rapid Genocides in the history of humanity.Currently, the association boasts a number of projects in which its members are involved. These include cassava growing, two mills and an internet café, with a number of other projects in the pipeline.The association’s activities have uplifted its members in various ways such as employment. Mukabahenda, for example, works at the association’s internet café.“Whenever we have an opportunity to hire someone, we give priority to our members,” Jean Claude Kwizigira, a member and association’s commissioner in charge of social affairs, said. “When we started this association, we wanted to stay together so as to keep supporting each other. From where we started and where we are today, there is a great difference. We started from ashes but we are proud that today at least 90 per cent of us have completed university.”“I would never have pursued university studies, if I was not part of the association. It gave me strength and determination to keep going,” says Kwizigira, now a third year student at the National University of Rwanda. “Coming together has helped us to fight solitude and heal the wounds of the Genocide and prepared us for the future”, he added.As Rwanda remembers for the 18th time the horrors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the young survivors under the Duharanire Kubaho association have hope in a brighter future.“We have come from so far and we still have a long way to go.... But if I consider my journey and if I compare my past and my current life, I can predict a better future,” Mukabahenda says with evident optimism.“Despite the challenges we are still facing, we have realised that we did not hit the dead end but that there is light at the end of the tunnel”.
