Stories from Women

Lucienne | Alice | Julienne | Viviane- Click on the links below to read these women's stories.

 

Lucienne's Story

Lucienne M’Maroyi is a 24-year-old woman who has been separated from her husband since she was raped. She is in the Bwirhonzi group of Walungu, the mother of three daughters, the third of whom resulted from her rapes as a sex slave. She named her baby Luck because the people with whom she was taken in the bush were killed, but she was lucky not to have been killed along with them.

“My husband was on a trip to Bukavu when some Interahamwe broke into the house where I was staying with my sister-in-law at around 9 pm. It was in December 2006. They came with flashlights. I had my baby in my arms. They pulled it away from me and threw it aside. I was alone in the house. They left the kids behind, and they stayed with a neighbor. It was a blessing that they did not rape my daughters—they were so young and small, it would have been the worst tragedy for me. They pulled me and tied my arms behind my back with a rope together with my sister-in-law. They dragged us out and brought us to the home of another family where they collected other people. They also took my brother with us. Soon there were five of us. On the way they shot one elderly woman because she could not walk fast enough.

”When we got to the bush, they pulled me down to rape me in front of my brother. They gave him the flashlight to hold. As he hid his face in shame, they struck him with a gun and pulled him away to kill him.

“When they were about to kill me, one of them said I resembled his sister and that I would become his wife instead. They killed another woman. We were beaten many times. As we were swollen because of the walk and having been beaten, one of the men warmed water and gave it to us so we could massage ourselves. They sent a woman to us with food. Fortunately, to my surprise, it was my sister whom we mourned and thought had died. She had been taken at the time they killed my father. She told me she was ill and that nobody would allow her to get treatment. She was also pregnant.

“My sister-in-law was killed during a dispute between two men who wanted to have her as a wife. They decided to solve the problem by killing her.

“Another woman was impregnated. She tried to abort the baby, but she bled too much and died due to lack of access to medical treatment. I remained alone with my sister. I was also pregnant with this baby, Luck, whom I delivered in October 2007. I spent three months and a half with these people as a sex slave.

“I escaped when my elder sister was in labor and was being sent to the maternity clinic. They asked me to take her there, but took my clothes off so that I would not run away. I wore only pants. On the way, we met a government soldier whose wife gave me clothes to put on. They also made porridge for us. Unfortunately my sister died during her delivery. I kept the baby until its father came and took it to Bukavu.

“When my husband heard I was back, he said he would not remain with the Interahamwe’s wife. He stopped me from coming to his farms. I had to live at my father’s old friend’s place, where I sleep with my children on the floor in their sitting room.

“Joining the program has been a salvation. My children were suffering from malnutrition, but since I began receiving training and learned about the three types of food that need to be part of good nutrition, my life has changed and my children are healthy. I used my sponsorship funds to pay for medical treatments for them. They are not school-aged yet. I recovered confidence through the [Women for Women International] training.”

Alice's Story

Once a participant in the Women for Women International program, Alice is now a literacy trainer with the DRC chapter. Born in Burundi, Alice was a long-time victim of tribal discrimination and, later, domestic violence at the hand of her husband. She was forced to flee with her sick baby boy to South Kivu in the DRC after a particularly violent beating by her husband. As refugees, Alice and her son were given no assistance and her son eventually died. She started as a participant with WfWI-DRC in March 2008 and excelled in her classes. Now, she teaches other women about domestic violence and was recently hired by WfWI-DRC as a literacy trainer. She now makes enough money to sustain herself and her daughter.

When you meet Alice Kiza Nahayo, you’ll find her full of glowing optimism. As a successful, joyful, and confident literacy trainer for Women for Women International-DRC, it’s hard to imagine the tragedies she has endured throughout her life. Yet Alice has had a long journey – she actually started out in the Women for Women International family as a participant. The depth of her personal triumph is apparent when she tells her story of survival from an orphan and victim of gender-based violence and rebirth as a loving mother and teacher.

Born in Burundi in 1968, Alice was orphaned in early childhood and raised under the harsh realities of a racist headmistress in an orphanage torn by Hutu and Tutsi tribal tensions. Brutal tribal conflicts govern the region where Alice, a Tutsi minority, grew up, and eventually lead to the horrifying Rwandan genocide of 1994. Alice experienced harsh discrimination in the orphanage that she is unable to describe to this day. She married as a young woman, eager to leave the hardships of her childhood behind, and became optimistic that she would finally feel at home in a place where she belonged. Alice was happy with her four children and felt that her life would be forever changed.

But after the birth of her fourth child, Alice’s husband began to beat and insult her daily. Her husband’s family mistreated her as well. One day, Alice’s husband beat her so badly that her right arm was broken; he set fire to her high school diploma, her prized possession and a symbol of her past achievements. With nowhere to turn, Alice escaped to Uvira, a city the province of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). She fled with her youngest son, who was quite ill at the time and for whose safety she was also very concerned.

Although she was now safe from the violence and discrimination of her husband and his family, Alice had few options for survival upon arrival in Uvira. As refugees, she and her son were given no assistance. As a woman and a Tutsi, options for employment were difficult to come by for Alice. They were without food, shelter, and her son’s poor health condition was worsening by the day. Eventually he died and Alice buried him in their new home. She was devastated. She felt that there was nothing left for her.  That’s when Women for Women International-DRC (WfWI-DRC) found Alice.

Alice began as a participant in the WfWI-DRC program in March 2008, receiving direct financial aid, rights awareness and vocational skills training and psychosocial support from other participants, trainers, and her sponsor. At first, Alice was shy, sickly, and incapable of sharing her experiences with the group. Over time, the warm and familial atmosphere shared by the women participants in the Women for Women program drew Alice out of her shell and allowed her to become more confident and more willing to speak about and overcome her past tragedies. Her favorite subject was that of women’s rights, which sparked her interests and allowed her to regain her self-esteem.

Alice’s new-found confidence gave her the courage to share her knowledge and empower other participants in the WfWI-DRC program. She began to teach the other women about the realities of domestic violence, herself a survivor of life-threatening beatings by her husband. She excelled in her vocational skills training in culinary arts. The program staff considered her to be one of the most dynamic members of her group, a fact confirmed when she was invited to train fellow women in the program. She is now a literacy trainer for other women in the WfWI-DRC program.

“I am very happy to have been socially integrated in the community of my refuge,” Alice said of her experience with Women for Women in Uvira. “I am able to earn an income to sustain myself and my daughter.” The women she trains with are oft heard to say that they hope to become like Alice one day.  She has come such a long way from tribal discrimination in the orphanage, violence and humiliation at her husband’s hand, and extreme poverty and social exclusion as a refugee; her inner strength to overcome these many hardships is an inspiration. That she is now helping and inspiring other women to rebuild their lives is the ultimate testament to her strength and success.

Julienne's Story

Julienne is a successful soap-maker in Bukavu and works as a vocational skills trainer for Women for Women International-DRC. She is an internally displaced person, originally from Walungu territory, forced to move when violence from roving militias threatened her safety and that of her family. She joined the WfWI-DRC program as a participant in 2006 and since then has built a successful soap-making business that allows her to save $50 each month after covering her family’s expenses. She was recently hired by WfWI-DRC to train other program participants in soap-making. Everyone says that Julienne appears to have grown younger in the past three years.

Julienne is a 53-year-old mother of seven. She and her husband live in Bukavu with their two daughters and five sons. Since 2006, Julienne has worked within the Women for Women program to rebuild her life after being displaced due to violence in her home territory of Walungu. Today she works for Women for Women International-DRC (WfWI-DRC) as a vocational skills trainer in soap-making. Hers is a story of success and overcoming great obstacles to become the self-sufficient provider for her family she is today.

Julienne and her family are originally from a farming village in Walungu territory located south of Bukavu. Walungu and the surrounding South Kivu have been hit especially hard by violence, especially sexual violence against women, brought on by armed militias roving Eastern DRC. As violence and insecurity persisted, Julienne and her husband fled Walungu and moved to Bukavu. Unable to find work, her husband was forced to continue farming in his home village and travel between Walungu and Bukavu for his safety. This placed an enormous burden on Julienne. Times were hard and money was scarce. Julienne lived in fear for her husband’s life. She operated a small business selling onions, palm oil and peanuts at the Mulungulungu, Panzi market with a capital of only $5. She was able to maintain at least one meal per day, but the strain was great as she attempted to put all her children through school.

In February 2006, Julienne enrolled in the Women for Women International-DRC (WfWI-DRC) program where she received training in small business development. She learned the value of working as a team with her sisters in the WfWI-DRC program, who devised a scheme to invest $5 of their sponsorship funds in each other’s businesses, providing a lump-sum of $80 to each woman on rotation. This investment allowed her to build her small business and meet other household needs. She invested some of the money in a Culinary Arts training program, for which she received a Program Attendance Certificate with distinction as one of the best students in her class. She used the training to teach her daughter the culinary skills she learned, adding value to her home and investing in her daughter’s future.

After her first year with Women for Women, Julienne made the decision to abandon her small business to pursue a more economically-feasible option. Having received vocational skills training in soap-making to diversify her income generation, she reached out to a friend who helped her to find customers for her soap-making business. Eventually, Julienne secured the patronage of the Saint Etienne School which she now supplies twice a month with her soaps. She’s making $10 per sale which is enough to feed her family and send her kids to school.

Last year, a position opened up as a Soap-Making Trainer with WfWI-DRC. An experienced soap-maker who understood the value of working as a group with other Congolese women, Julienne was motivated to apply for the position and was hired by Women for Women in July 2008.  Proud of her achievement, Julienne said, “I am gaining my life without a lot of difficulties; I have a salary which comes every month.”

Every month Julienne is able to put $50 into savings after covering all of her family’s needs. This has helped her purchase equipment to expand and improve her business. She is well-respected by her family and community. Julienne’s health has improved too – her self-confidence shines through her physical self. Her face appears to have grown younger in the past three years!

Viviane's Story

Viviane is a skills trainer for WfWI-DRC. She has been making soap since 2003, and a soap trainer for WfWI since 2005. In that time she has trained over 1,000 women many of whom have gone on to become teachers themselves or open successful businesses producing soap. Once forced to discontinue her education after working hard to get to university, Viviane has become a great success and single-handedly supports her six children, all of whom are in school, while continuing as a trainer and running her own soap-making business.

Viviane Mahongole Barhumvanya works with Women for Women International-DRC training women to make soap. Since 2005, Viviane has trained over 1,000 of WfWI-DRC’s participants to become skilled soap makers. Some of the women Viviane has trained have gone on to become trainers themselves. Many others have been hired by production companies or opened small businesses of their own producing and selling soap. 

Viviane is a good teacher. She’s dedicated to the position as evidenced by her four-year long commitment to training WfWI-DRC participants. In addition to her training, Viviane is herself a skilled soap maker and runs a soap-making business out of her home, supplying soap to 50-some business groups.

Viviane pursued her education at a young age. She graduated from elementary school in Kivu and secondary school in Bukavu. She went on to university at the Rural Development College, but her financial situation unfortunately prevented her from finishing. Instead, Viviane pursued soap making to earn a stable income. Becoming a teacher has been a rewarding experience. A single mother of six children, she encourages her children and wants to provide them with the best education. Her oldest daughter is in her first year of university, and her second recently graduated from high school. Her younger children, three sons and one daughter, are all still in high school. Education for all her children, especially her daughters, is one of Viviane’s most important goals in life.

Over the years, Viviane’s dedication to her students and work as a trainer has earned her the utmost respect of her superiors, and she is rewarded with greater responsibility. “…[O]ur department leaders…involve me in the analysis and designing of training modules. My unit gives me additional tasks related to the management of the solidarity small cash box recently created in our department.” She’s proud of all that she has accomplished, and all that her students are accomplishing each day. This year, Viviane and twenty other women from WfWI-DRC were accepted into a business and management training program sponsored by Goldman Sachs and taught by instructors from the University of Dar es Salaam. Once forced to leave school when it became too expensive, Viviane is thrilled now that she will be able to continue her education as part of this program. She is proud of her achievements, and is just one more example of the positive, multiplied change that occurs when women are empowered to become business-women and teachers.

 

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