Mennonite
Central
Committee

Burundi's Batwa people find hope through Global Family program

November 2005

 

Education has a special significance for Adrienne Nahimana, a mother of six children in Nyangungu, a hillside village of low brick houses, reddish dirt paths and small plots of corn, banana and coffee.

Nahimana, 40, was never able to attend school as a child. She and her family are Batwa, an indigenous ethnic group that makes up about 1 percent of the population of Burundi, one of the poorest countries in the world. Because of discrimination and deep poverty, many Batwa have had little or no formal education.

The Batwa have traditionally lived as hunters and as makers of grass mats and ceramics, but wild animals have all but disappeared, and the market for Batwa crafts is vanishing too. Today, Nahimana is sending her children to school to learn how to survive in a changing world.

"Since I never received an education, I have no choice but to continue making pottery for a small income," Nahimana says. "I hope my children will have the chance to continue studying until secondary school so that they can have the chance to become something more."

Two of Nahimana's children attend Hope School, an elementary school in Nyangungu that she and other parents started in 2000 to serve the Batwa community and their neighbors. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has supported Hope School since its founding with about $2,800 Cdn./$2,200 U.S. each year from MCC's Global Family program, which sponsors schools and other educational programs for more than 4,700 children and young people in 39 countries.

The Batwa are believed to be the original inhabitants of Burundi, which is also home to an ethnic Hutu majority and an ethnic Tutsi minority. The Batwa and other central African indigenous groups are known for their short stature, which led Western observers to label them "Pygmies" and even to question their humanity. As late as 1906, a "Pygmy" man named Ota Benga, originally from the Congo, was exhibited in the Bronx Zoo.

Misperceptions about the Batwa exist in Burundian society as well. The Batwa are often viewed as "unclean" people by members of Burundi's other ethnic groups and are excluded when food is eaten. At Hope School, these ethnic divisions are being overcome.

"When we started the school, the Batwa students would go outside (at lunchtime)," says Zoe Safari, the director of Hope School. "After that, we taught them that we are not Batwa, we are not Tutsis, we are not Hutus — we are one."

Lea Nibizi, a kindergarten teacher, says that Batwa students were initially afraid of her because she is not Batwa. "The Batwa were considered an unclean people, so the Batwa considered themselves unclean, and they were afraid because of that," she says. "When the Batwa came together with others, they saw that they are like others."

Hope School is built on a hillside next to Nyangungu, and the schoolyard is the village's main gathering area. It has four brick classrooms, six teachers and 180 students in matching green and yellow uniforms. Hope School includes a kindergarten, which is unusual in Burundi, and teaches Kirundi (the national language), French, English, math, geography, history and science in three primary grades. Parents are pitching in by building a new classroom every year and tending a school garden.

"Next year, we are going to build the fourth grade here," says Rock Butoyi, a Batwa man with two children at Hope School. "As students, the kids are together — as parents, we also are one." Butoyi recalls that there were only four other Batwa students in his class when he attended sixth grade in a neighboring town. "It was difficult for us," he says. "We couldn't get the school fees, so I dropped out. The other reason was that we didn't know the reasons to study. There was no motivation — there was no one to encourage us to go to school."

Today, the village of Nyangungu has embraced education as never before. At a community celebration in front of Hope School, parents perform a traditional dance in face paint and orange robes before children put on a skit about the importance of going to school. Students also perform a dance and recite poems in French — a language they will need to master to reach secondary school.

"This school is for us like our heritage to our children," says Chartiel Nzibariza, the chief of Nyangungu. "Long after we are gone, our children will talk about the time this school was built — a school which I hope will open up opportunities to many Batwa, a school which will bring forth leaders in our community, in government. And many among them will be educated people in a just and peaceful society."

 

More about Global Family in Burundi