Identify the Batwa of Burundi
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Providing identification and access to basic human rights for one of the most at risk tribes in the world.
I visited Burundi in November of 2013 as an intern with African Road, Inc. It only took one visit to know something had to be done to help the people we met in and around Bujumbura. They opened my eyes to true poverty I can never forget. Now I am working to raise awareness of their plight and finances so one community can obtain identification cards and become citizens of Burundi. My goal is to br
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A report by Rwanda’s Senate Comission in 2009 says “the potters have miserable conditions among which the lack of adequate shelter, high rate of non schooling youth, the lack of the medical care, the lack of sources of income, the lack of employment, lack of farming lands and food insecurity… The malnutrition of the historically marginalized persons (potters) is at the heart of the high rate of infant mortality and by this fact potters risk of disappear completely.”
“The new life was imposed on us without warning. We had no time to prepare to integrate into another life outside the forest.” Says Imelde Sabushimike, a Batwa Indigenous Fellow from UN’s Geneva Programme last year.
With an identification card, a man, woman or child becomes a citizen, can attend school, be treated at the hospital, vote and even ride the bus! It cannot change stereotypes against Batwa as primitive, uncivilized and underdeveloped, or give them enough food to eat or grant them access to their homelands but it can give them recognition. Because many of them work all day just so they don't go to bed without having eaten, a $10 ID card is an luxury the majority of Burundi’s Batwa cannot even consider. We hope you can consider giving just ten dollars so one pygmy can become a citizen of Burundi and have access to the rights we all take for granted every day.