25-year-old Samuel Nshyimiyimana shares how he had to deal with shame and isolation at school because his father had killed people in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Now a resident of Gacundezi Rwimiyaga, Nshyimiyimana says it was challenging having grown up without a father.
“As a student, my peers would isolate me because my father had committed genocide. Father was not at home, and as a child I didn’t know what had happened. I had to ask mother about him who then told me that he was in prison because of the genocide. What I learnt was heavy on me and what made matters worse is that father eventually died in prison,” she says.
Nshyimiyimana says when his father passed on; he didn’t know how life would move on, “Life was already hard as it was. Students would bully me, I was isolated and school fees became a challenge. I had to drop out.”
He later joined the Mvura Nkuvure training, offered by Haguruka to enforce societal healing, which he says has since transformed his life for the better.
“They taught us that we have to be strong and not be depressed because of what we went through. They have repaired our hearts because what we went through is a lot. I have changed as a person, and shame no longer defines me,” he notes.
Nshyimiyimana says that as a person, all he strives for is peace and even have hope of going back to school one day, “In Mvura Nkumvure, we are being resurrected.”