Last month, as part of the Gir’ubuntu project, we organized a two-day special workshop bringing together more than 80 young people from Bujumbura and upcountry who belong to different political movements, organizations and groups. The theme of this conference focused on truth, forgiveness and reconciliation in order to promote personal and national healing. Nahimana Dieudonne, the CEO of New Generation, explained to the youth that we need to be a generation that contributes to the healing of our country in order to stop the cycle of violence in Burundi.
Through a presentation made by the project manager of New Generation, Teddy Claude Harushimana, the participants had an opportunity to revisit the past and look at some of the events that led to ethnic rivalry in Burundi. Afterwards, they had an opportunity to discuss in different groups on the strategies to use in order to elaborate a charter whose central theme will be to promote non-violence in Burundi, how to organize debates and activities that can bring the youth together, and how to communicate hope instead of despair through different social media platforms.
On the last day of the conference, a program of some of the activities to be conducted in the upcoming days was approved by all the participants. These include a special training on non-violence involving young people from all parts of the capital, sports and artistic activities bringing together different categories of young people in order to promote active non-violence and the use of social media to spread messages of non-violence.
