In April, Barri traveled to the central African country of Burundi, which is recovering from more than a dozen years of war and mass displacement following a 1993 genocide that drove more than 500,000 to seek refuge in neighboring countries, including Tanzania. The IRC has been working in Burundi since 1996, reuniting uprooted families, assisting former child solders, helping returning refugees reintegrate, and promoting peace and stability as the country rebuilds after the conflict.

Barri’s guest posts from Burundi are being featured on World is Witness, a new “geoblog” from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiatives, in partnership with Google Earth.  This is the second post in a series of three. Catch up with part one here. Part three has just been posted o World is Witness–you can read it here.

The next field visit we made was to Muyinga, a province in the northeastern part of the country. Like Makamba, Muyinga borders Tanzania and many thousands of refugees returning to Burundi after years of conflict pass through here.

Perhaps the most compelling part of my trip was our visit to the repatriation center run by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.  UNHCR and partner NGOs like my organization, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), are responsible for welcoming the returning refugees and providing information, registration and food rations before they head back to their home communities.  As we drove up, we just caught the last group of arrivals for the day unloading from the bus and moving to a hall filled with benches where they would be briefed and registered. 

There were over 400 men, women and children crammed into the room with all of the belongings they were allowed to carry with them from Tanzania at their sides.  Many of them had spent most of their lives inside a refugee camp. Some of the men and women we talked to told us how their children were born in Tanzania and had never seen Burundi.

The returnees do not know what awaits them in their home communities: will they be able to find employment; will there be opportunities for their children? Will the neighbors they left behind accept them back?  Many have grown accustomed to camp life and will now be out on their own in a place that has become more of a vague memory than a home.

Again, though, I was struck by these Burundians’ sense of hope. Despite all they had been through, and the less then promising prospects they faced in finding jobs and supporting their families, they were still excited to be back in their homeland to rebuild and start their own lives anew.  While I heard the same optimism the students in Makamba expressed, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of uncertainty that things might not work out–that the life they had gotten used to in the refugee camps might just be easier than what they would encounter during the long journey home. 

As refugees arrive at repatriation centers like this one, IRC staff members are on hand to identify and support children who were separated from their families during the conflict or the repatriation process. While the IRC works to track down their relatives so that they can be reunited and go home, we also look out for the children’s security and help them get an education. We’re currently assisting 300 returning Burundian refugee children at the border—a caseload that is only expected to increase as the refugee camps in Tanzania close. The support we offer these children will give them a sense of safety they haven’t felt in years, providing the stability they need to develop and grow into healthy adults.

Read part 3 at World is Witness.

The following guest post is the first in a series of three.

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Arriving in Burundi I was first struck by the amazing beauty of this mountainous country. Our first assignment was to travel to Makamba, a province in the south bordering Tanzania. Makamba will soon become home to many of the 100,000 Burundians returning from refugee camps in Tanzania slated to close next year. These refugees—over half of them children and youth— will need support for a peaceful return and reintegration. Host communities will need help absorbing these new arrivals into what are already overtaxed local economies.

The markets and town centers we visited in Makamba were busy and full of life. People were out and about buying and selling bread, fruit and vegetables. Bicycle repair shops and tailoring shops were whirring with activity. But In and around the market place during school hours were tons of children, without books, school uniforms or even shoes – their school fees too great for their poverty stricken families to afford. Burundi’s education system, crippled by the conflict, is unable to accommodate all its children—and as more and more families return from Tanzania the number of children and youth who don’t receive any schooling will continue to grow.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) supports training for out-of-school youth in skilled trades to help them become more employable and able to contribute to their families’ incomes. We visited a couple of these courses, run by local tradespeople specializing in carpentry and cooking. While the trainers and IRC staff members clearly took pride in their students’ accomplishments, they said they worried that after graduation the students would have difficulty finding jobs—and a path to self-sufficient adulthood— in a struggling economy where opportunities are few.

What youth need to make it in the markets – and ultimately in life – is a sense of innovation, the ability to cope with shocks and setbacks, and the confidence and self esteem to believe they have a future.

The hopeful young Burundians we met and who the IRC’s youth program staff encounter each day are willing and even desperate to try new things and dedicate time to learning new skills. But they need more than just a trade to succeed. They also need the know-how to start their own business and access credit, the knowledge to keep themselves healthy mentally and physically, and the ability and understanding to resolve conflict without resorting to violence. The IRC has received new funding to expand its youth programs and is working to provide young people with these “big picture” skills that will help them navigate their way to a healthy and peaceful adulthood.

What I was most struck by in Makamba was the hope of the Burundian youth that, despite all odds, they were going to work to restore peace and stability in their country. Their optimism was cautious, but they remained hopeful that things can and will change for their country.