1. Biography

2. Maison Shalom in Burundi

3. Maison Shalom Rwanda and the Community Center Oasis of Peace

4. Mahama Refugee Camp and Mahama Elite Center

5. Awards and Honours

6. Honorary Degrees

7. Books about Maggy and Maison Shalom

8. References

9. External links

During the 22 years it operated in Burundi, Maison Shalom grew into a large network of schools, hospitals, and healthcare services across Burundi. The purpose of Maison Shalom was to improve the lives of Burundi's children through integrated and sustainable development, with the ultimate aim of fostering lasting peace in Burundi.

However, in 2015 Maggie was forced to flee her country and Maison Shalom after Burundi plunged into a political crisis.^[2] Far from surrendering, Maggie decided to dedicate all of her energy to helping more than 90,000 Burundian refugees in Rwanda.^[3] In 2017, she opened the Community Center Oasis of Peace in Kigali to help school children, offer psycho-social support to victims of torture and rape, and implement activities of sustainable development in areas such as health, education, vocational training, culture, and income-generation.^[4] As she often says herself, Maggie's vision is to instill dignity in refugees and allow them to keep their dreams alive: "Evil never has the last word – love always wins".

Maggie is the recipient of numerous awards, including the [https://auroraprize.com/en/aurora/detail/9663/laureate-1-million-aurora-prize Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity] (2016), the Opus Prize (2008), the Prize for Conflict Prevention (2011), UNESCO (2008), the Nansen Refugee Award (2005), the Four Freedoms Award from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (2004), [https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/resources/document/download/329 the Voices of Courage Award of the Women's Commission for Women and Refugee Children] (2004), the World Children's prize (2003),^[5] the Juan Maria Bandres Prize for Asylum Rights (1998), and the French Government's Human Rights Prize (1998).

Biography

Marguerite "Maggie" Barankitse was born in 1957 in Ruyigi, East-Burundi, one of the poorest regions of the country. She was a teacher at a local secondary school but was fired because of her protests against discrimination between Hutus and Tutsis in the field of education. She then went to work as a secretary for the Catholic Bishop in Ruyigi.^[6] Despite mounting tensions, Maggie put her dream of ethnic harmony into practice by adopting seven children: four Hutus and three Tutsis. As violence escalated between Hutus and Tutsis following the assassination of the first democratically elected president of Burundi, a group of armed Tutsis descended on Ruyigi on October 23, 1993, to kill the Hutu families who were hiding in the Bishop's manor. Maggie managed to hide many of the children but was caught by the fighters. They beat and humiliated her and forced her to watch the killing of 72 Hutus, but she refused to tell them where the children were hidden.^[7] Ultimately, she was spared only because she is a Tutsi. After this ordeal, Maggie gathered her adopted children and the surviving orphans and hid them in a nearby school. As more and more children sought shelter with her, she decided to create a small non-governmental organisation: Maison Shalom, the House of Peace. Maggie's house was open to children of all ethnic origins: Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa. She calls them "my Hutsitwa children",^[8] and they call her "Oma"^[9] (or grandmother in German). In the following years, Maison Shalom in Ruyigi was one of the few places in Burundi where Hutus and Tutsis cohabited in harmony.^[10]

Since the terrible events of 1993, over 20,000 children and youth have benefited from Maison Shalom. Before the current crisis in Burundi, the organisation employed more than 270 people, including nurses, psychologists, and educators who implemented special projects for the children.

In April 2015, Maggie spoke out against the third term of Pierre Nkurunziza and joined the youth demonstrations denouncing the president. As a result, she was obliged to hide for a month in an embassy in Bujumbura.^[11] Eventually, she had to flee, for the government had her name on a list of persons to be eliminated.^[12] Having joined the youth demonstrations denouncing the president who sought a third term, Maggie found herself a refugee.

But her refugee status did not stop Maggie's devotion to alleviating suffering.^[13] She has now opened a branch of Maison Shalom in Rwanda.

Maison Shalom in Burundi

In the autumn of 1993, after the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically elected president of Burundi (Hutu), the Burundian civil war began with massacres taking place throughout the country. In the province of Ruyigi, disaster struck on 24 October. To exact vengeance for the killing of members of their ethnic group, the Tutsi hunted the town's Hutus, who were hiding in the diocese buildings. Maggie (Tutsi) was also there, and she tried to reason with the group of Tutsi to convince them not to use violence. However, her efforts were in vain and they decided to tie her to a chair and forced her to watch the killing of 72 of her friends.^[14]

A few hours after the massacre, the children of the victims started to come out of their hiding places. That day, Maggie says, she realized that her mission would be to fight the violence ravaging her country by giving those children, and the 20,000 who would follow, an alternative to hate.^[15] Amid the prevailing disaster, the news had spread rapidly about the "crazy woman of Ruyigi" who dared to take in all of the orphans who came to her, never refusing anyone. Twa, Hutu, Tutsi: Maggie made no distinction.

Maggie initially gathered the 25 orphaned children of the Ruyigi massacre. With the help of European and Burundian friends, she organized a network that provided care for a growing number of children.^[16] In May 1994, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ruyigi, Bishop Joseph Nduhirubusa^[17] agreed to transform a former school into a children's shelter called 'Maison Shalom'. The shelter was named so named by the children, in memory of a song heard on the radio at the time, and because the word "peace" in Kirundi had been instrumentalized and defiled by the slaughterers on both sides of the conflict.^[18]

Maison Shalom's focus was also predominantly children, including child soldiers, orphans, mutilated children, and minors in prison. However, the services of Maison Shalom were available to the entire community, having an impact not only on the lives of orphans but also the entire region that could access to these services. While services were available to the entire community, the focus was on children, some of whom were child soldiers, orphans, mutilated child and minors in prison. Maison Shalom's activities soon also expanded to other cities such as Butezi and Gizuru, where Maggy opened other children's shelters were opened.

Over the years, what was just a shelter seeking to protect orphans from both sides of the Burundian ethnic divide after the civil war, grew into an entire village,^[19] (including a bank, a crèche, an hotel,^[20] a shop, resource centre for learning sewing and computing, a mechanic training, a swimming pool, the REMA Hospital,^[21] and even a cinema).^[22]

Many of those activities were income-generating initiatives run by the youth themselves, such as the guesthouse, the cinema, the car workshop, etc. When they became independent, the young people supported by Maison Shalom received a small house and a plot of land.

In 2004 an estimated 20,000 children had benefited from her help, either directly or indirectly.^[23][24]

By 2015, over 300 houses for children and youth aged between 4 and 20 had been built. The NGO also helped internally displaced persons and returning Burundian refugees to reintegrate in Ruyigi and to trace their missing relatives. Maggy Barankitse was on the frontline in the battle against HIV/AIDS, setting up counselling projects to promote HIV/AIDS prevention. She and her staff cared for over 100 HIV infected children who had been abandoned or orphaned.

Maggy also started an initiative to help the youth who were in prison. Some children were born in prison and she worked to find them a better life, through education and a home outside the prison. Her team continued to promote agriculture and established a microfinance project to enable the mothers and fathers to develop small businesses.^[25]

But in 2015, everything fell apart. The Burundian government started suppressing protests against a third term for President Nkurunziza. Thousands of Burundians started fleeing to Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania or the DRC. Maggy protests, cares for the wounded young, and feeds those who are in prison. But in June 2015, Marguerite Barankitse is herself forced to flee. In Burundi, her head is priced.^[26]

Maison Shalom Rwanda and the Community Center Oasis of Peace

Far from surrendering, Maggy refused to spend comfortably her days in Europe and instead decided to dedicate all her energy to help more than 90.000 Burundian refugees in Rwanda.^[27]

Maggy started with her expertise; education. She fought to get an education for children and university students who are in refugee camps.^[28] She has put 126 children in preschool, 160 in secondary school and obtained 353 scholarships for University refugee students to join Rwandan universities, and 10 scholarships for the best students to study in universities abroad.

In May 2017, Maggy opened the Community Center Oasis of Peace in order to school children, offer psychosocial support to victims of torture and rape, and to implement activities of sustainable development in areas such as health, education, vocational training, culture, and income-generation.^[29]

The Centre already offers a variety of courses including English language, culinary arts, tailoring, embroidery and painting. It also has a restaurant and a cyber equipped with computers with internet connection for research and basic computer training. Approximately 200 people come every day to the Centre and benefit from the various services offered by Maison Shalom.^[30]

Maison Shalom seeks to help refugees and especially young people in exile to live in dignity, to use the exile for empowerment and to forgiveness for those who forced them to flee their homeland.^[31]

Mahama Refugee Camp and Mahama Elite Center

Since 2015, more than 430.000 Burundians have been forced to flee and to seek refuge in neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda.^[32] Among them, more than 90.000 are in Rwanda, of which 58.000 live in Mahama refugee camp.^[33] This camp is now considered to be a model case of refugee management in the East African Region.^[34]

To support the refugees living in the camp,^[35] Maison Shalom opened the Mahama Elite Center on 22 June 2018.^[36]

This training center at Mahama refugee camp will offer vocational training and employment to Burundian refugees in the camp. The project will enable young people not only to improve their living conditions but also to strengthen their entrepreneurship skills.^[37]

Awards and Honours

The scope of her action, as well as the fact that she protects all children without consideration of their origin, Tutsi or Hutu, brought Maggy praise from all corners of the world:^[38]

• 1998 : Prix des Droits de l'homme de la République française – Liberté – Égalité – Fraternité (Human Rights award of the French government)
• 2000 : North-South Prize from the Council of Europe
• 2003 : World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child
• 2004 : Voices of Courage Award of the Women's Commission for Women and Refugee Children
• 2004 : Nansen Refugee Award
• 2008 : Opus Prize^[39][40]
• 2008 : UNESCO Prize
• In June 2009, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg, UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children, visited Maison Shalom during a tour of Burundi.^[41] In October 2011, the Grand Duchess welcomed Marguerite Barankitse to Luxembourg to open a photographic exhibition in support of Maison Shalom.^[42]
• On November 24, 2011, Marguerite Barankitse^[43] received the Prize for Conflict Prevention from the hands of Kofi Annan.^[44] The Conflict Prevention Prize is awarded every year by the Fondation Chirac, launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac.
• In 2011 Barankitse received the journalistic prize Golden Doves for Peace issued by the Italian Research Institute Archivio Disarmo.^[45]
• On April 24, 2016 Marguerite was awarded the $1.1m Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, an award given to humanitarians in memory of the Armenian Genocide.^[46][47]

Honorary Degrees

• [https://www.ru.ac.za/graduationgateway/honorarydoctorates/2017/drmargueritebarankitse/ 2017 Degree of Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) of Rhodes University]
• 2013 Emory University, Honorary Doctor's Degree, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• [https://trustees.duke.edu/honorary-degrees-past-recipients/2010-2017 2013 Duke University, Honorary Doctor's Degree], Durham, North Carolina, USA, alongside Melinda Gates
• 2012 Université de Lille, France, Honorary Doctor's Degree
• 2011 Doctor Honoris Causa, Université Catholique de Lille, France
• [https://uclouvain.be/fr/decouvrir/events/les-docteurs-honoris-causa-ucl-depuis-1951.html 2004 Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Louvain], Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Books about Maggy and Maison Shalom

• La haine n'aura pas le dernier mot, in French by Christel Martin, Editions Michel Albin 2005
• [https://books.google.rw/books/about/Madre_di_diecimila_figli.html?id=wLLvQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y Madre di diecimila figli, Edition Piemme Bestseller 2010], translated into Italian from the French, La haine n'aura pas le dernier mot by Christel Martin
• [https://www.amazon.com/Hummingbird-Why-Here-Maggys-Children/dp/1470124408 Hummingbird, Why Am I Here? Maggy's Children, by Judith Debetencourt Hoskins], in English,2012

References

External links

• Official Web-site of Maison Shalom (in French)
• Video on Marguerite Barankitse's action, Fondation Chirac's website

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• America - Fuck Yeah!
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• America II, Tamaulipas
• America, Illinois
• America (I Love America)
• Americain
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• America is dying slowly
• America is Dying Slowly
• America is in the Heart
• America is in the Heart: A Personal History