02/20/2008
Amina’s Story
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Félicien Ntakiyimana is a member of the Leadership Team of the World Fourm Foundation's project the International Working Group on Peace Building with Young Children. Currently Félicien is working with refugees in Chad. He shared Amina's story with us. According to Félicien, Amina, 14, fled her village after her husband was killed. With her eight-month old son, she hid in the bush and eventually reached an IDP camp (for internally displaced people) near Koukou. Even in the camp, Amina doesn’t feel safe and is concerned about how she will feed her baby. Repeated attacks on villages in eastern Chad have forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. Children and families don’t have basic supplies, malnutrition levels are rising in some areas, and education facilities are almost non-existent in many IDP sites. Here is her story:
“I’m a widow. My baby boy is eight months. When they attacked my village my husband was killed, like most husbands in the village. I ran away from my village looking for safety with other villagers. It took us two days walking into the bush to reach a safe area. Lots of my friends have been abducted, killed and raped. Others are still missing.
“My brothers helped me make a grass shelter and an organisation gave me a plastic sheet. But it got spoiled when the rains came. When it started to rain I left my shelter with my baby to look for somewhere dry. Eventually we settled in this IDP site. In the site most people are trying to cope with their own distress. Nobody has time to support us [girl widows].
“Every morning I leave the camp early [around 4 am] to collect wood in the bush. At about noon I come back to the camp. I try and sell the wood for about XAF 500 [just over US$1], which means I can buy millet or sorghum for our daily meal. After that, I go to fetch water. Getting water is very difficult because there are only five hand-pumps for the 12,000 people living in the site. We can spend two or three hours there. This is my daily timetable, like all the other widows here in the camp. We don’t have any way of making money other than selling wood.
“When we go to collect wood we’re scared because the outside the camp isn’t safe. Even inside the camp, women and girls are regularly abused. I know of 50 rape victims who died because they didn’t get medical assistance.
“I don’t just feel unsafe. My greatest fear is hunger. We only get one koro (three and a half kilos) of bulgur wheat every two months. Also, with the rainy season coming, a lot of people like me don’t know where to sleep.”
Félicien is one of the contributors to the World Forum publication,
From Conflict to Peace Building: The Power of Early Childhood Initiatives. This book shares lessons of early childhood education as a means of bringing communities back together after armed conflict.
More information.
Challenge your mind, not your schedule, with a distance-learning master’s degree in education from Walden University. Walden offers classroom teachers a practical way to strengthen their skills and advance their career, in areas such as curriculum, technology, leadership, math, science, reading, and more.
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