From Boston to Burundi

Three weeks ago I was returning from an excursion during our Boston workshop. Our group had spent the day visiting local organizations to get a better sense of what is being done in Boston around youth development, creativity, and social justice work. We visited Artists for Humanity, the Boston Area Youth Organizing Project, the Cloud Foundation, and a “Kids with Cameras’” photography exhibit on Israel-Palestine at the Boston Public Library.

Our group visiting the Cloud Foundation

Catherine at the Kids with Cameras Israel-Palestine photo exhibit

Upon our return to the school, Catherine (a participant), Wendy (a facilitator) and I were sitting outside of the school waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. While we were talking we heard what sounded like gunshots behind the school. The girls seemed uncertain, but it was an undeniable sound, and too close for comfort. Within minutes, several marked and unmarked police cars circled the building. Unfortunately, I heard right. There was a shooting of a young boy just behind the school where we were holding our workshop, in the middle of the afternoon no less.

Catherine and Kyle at the Franklin Park Zoo

Wendy and Kyle posing during our photography scavenger hunt. For this assignment participants were supposed to take a photo of "friendship."

In a way, this tragic event reinforced the need behind our work. Anyone from these neighborhoods in Boston can tell you how they worry about summertime for just this reason.

Fast-forwarding 3 weeks now, I’m sitting in a room on the outskirts of Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. It’s Monday. I arrived to Burundi on Saturday, after nearly 48 hours of traveling. Across the table from me is a young boy, 15, who can hardly look me in the eye. I start by telling him my name and asking him to present himself. This is one of 17 interviews I would do that day to select participants for our upcoming workshop. In Kirundi (the local language) the boy would proceed to tell me about his life. At age 11 he was wounded by a grenade and, while in the hospital, was abducted by members of the FNL, Burundi’s last remaining armed rebel group. The FNL in English stands for the National Liberation Forces. The boy says he can’t remember his parents or his family. In fact, he would later tell me that he was made to promise then that he would never mention his parents again. He held his promise during our interview. I went on to ask about why he’d want to do such a program. Timidly, he spoke about wanting to be a journalist or a doctor. He said how photography could help tell his story.

No words really capture the trauma and horror in his eyes. I’m sad to say that we did not select him for this workshop. There are others former child soldiers that we did select. This boy, along with 12 others, will be first on the list for the next workshop, which we hope to launch in the early fall. For this workshop we will have 16 participants, 8 boys and 8 girls. Among them there are youth that are homeless, orphans of the war and of HIV/AIDS, refugees and displaced, immigrants, as well as demobilized ex-combatants. All participants are between the ages of 14-17. They come from different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds. Although a small sampling of this country of nearly 8 million people, their stories are representative of millions of stories across Burundi and the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

Whether in Boston or Bujumbura, I’m learning that youth are not only the future leaders of their communities and our world, they are the present leaders and therefore need the access, education, and experience to be able to re-direct the present imbalance of war versus peace in our world. I remain hopeful that our work is a powerful potion for such social change.

To read more about our Boston workshop, please visit our main Peace in Focus blog, which I oversee but is designed and maintained by our workshop participants. All the words and images therein are theirs.

A different narrative will soon emerge from that blog, one of untold stories from Burundi. Thanks for reading…

Our Boston group outside the Franklin Park Zoo

Below is a slideshow from our Peace in Focus Boston Photography Exhibit, which took place on July 16, 2008 at Roxbury Community College.