Marguerite Barankitse
During the 26 years that it operated in Burundi, Maison Shalom grew into a large network of schools, hospitals, and healthcare services across the country.
Its purpose was to improve the lives of Burundi's children, through integrated and sustainable development with the ultimate aim of fostering lasting peace in the country.
[3] In 2017, she opened the Community Center Oasis of Peace in Kigali to help schoolchildren, offer psychological and social support to torture and rape victims, and implement sustainable development activities in areas such as health, education, vocational training, culture, and income-generation.
[8] Despite mounting tensions, Barankitse put her dream of ethnic harmony into practice by adopting seven children: four Hutus and three Tutsis.
As violence escalated between the two tribes 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.
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 the autumn of 1993, after the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically elected president of Burundi (a Hutu), the Burundian civil war began with massacres taking place throughout the country.
To exact vengeance for the killing of members of their ethnic group, the Tutsi hunted the town's Hutus, who were hiding in diocese buildings.
That day, Barankitse 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.
[16] Amid the prevailing disaster, the news spread rapidly about the "crazy woman of Ruyigi" who dared to take in all of the orphans who came to her, never refusing anyone.
Over the years, what was merely a shelter seeking to protect orphans from both sides after the civil war, grew into an entire village,[20] and included a bank, a crèche, the REMA Hospital,[21] a hotel,[22] a shop, a resource centre for learning sewing and computing, a mechanic training school, a swimming pool, and even a cinema.
The NGO also helped internally displaced persons and returning Burundian refugees to reintegrate in Ruyigi and to find their missing relatives.
[27] Barankitse refused to spend her days in Europe comfortably and decided to dedicate her energy to help more than 90,000 Burundian refugees in Rwanda.
In May 2017, Barankitse opened the Community Center Oasis of Peace for schoolchildren, offer psychological and social 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.
[38] 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:[39]
