More than 3000 people are attending Reflect circles in Burundi, meeting to discuss their daily problems and find alternative solutions. This includes conflict management and response, longer term development solutions through micro-projects initiatives, HIV/AIDS prevention, literacy sessions etc…There are also about 2000 people who are now meeting weekly for post-literacy initiatives that include “Reading Clubs”, new development initiatives etc.
Context: The Reflect Approach was originally introduced by AA Burundi as a literacy methodology. However, the Reflect approach evolved gradually into an approach to integrated development, because it provides a democratic space for poor and marginalised people to debate their main problems, find out the main causes and finally propose themselves different ways to solutions. The reflect learning concept has been named by the community as GAKUBA, a Kirundi word meaning "A new approach that enables people to understand their village better by first analysing the problems that affect them and then looking for possible solutions to those problems."
We are now running 165 Reflect circles in all three Actionaid-Burundi project areas: Ruyigi, Rutana and Karusi. Most Reflect groups have equal numbers of men and women (average 51% women in Ruyigi, 54% women in Rutana and Karusi) and involve mostly people aged 15-45. Data is not collected on numbers of Hutu and Tutsi participants, although the ethnic mix of the community is usually represented fairly in the circles. The main objective is to ensure that all ethnic groups can participate equally, so it is therefore not considered in terms of numbers but by mutual acceptance.Addressing local level conflict:
Following the assassination of Burundi’s elected president in October 1993, severe civil, political and ethnic conflict broke out on national scale. ActionAid-Burundi (AAB) embarked on peace and reconciliation programmes in Ruyigi Province. Through their work AAB aimed to promote dialogue between communities, who having fled their villages are now living in camps for internally displaced people, and those still remaining in villages. Reflect was considered ideal for supporting this work. Communications through the use of community based newsletters and mobile audio-visual techniques were used among others as good strategy for peace and reconciliation building.
At first, it was really difficult to get people from the two main ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsi, to sit together in one Reflect circle and discuss their problems, particularly ethnic conflict, because there was still an atmosphere of suspicion and accusation. However, when a few people joined the Reflect circles, and started to use PLA tools to look at their problems, they began to discover the real causes of the conflict. They influenced other people to join the Reflect circles, from the two groups who had previously feared each other.Now, Reflect is one of the key components of the peace and development programme put in place since 1994 to respond to conflict and poverty issues arising from the 1993 crisis. A fundamental role for Reflect in the peace-building programme has been to provide opportunities for people to rebuild trust and social relationships through good communication. Hutu and Tutsi participate in joint activities such as road construction, share time in cultural activities and associations, work on challenging stereotypes and dispelling myths, engage in the reconstruction of shared history and culture and discuss the causes and management of conflict.
Local development:
By using the same PLA tools, participants discussed and analysed their vision of development, and thought how to put this into practice themselves, and with the help of development agencies. Key development needs after peace and reconciliation are health, agriculture, income generation and gender relationships.
- The biggest health issue is protection against HIV/AIDS and other diseases - Reflect groups have discussed and shared information on such issues.
- Reflect circles have welcomed agricultural extension workers to give them information on new skills in agriculture, including composting, crop spacing and rotation etc. Participants also share learning and skills with each other and with friends outside the circle.
- Many of the ideas generated in Reflect circles for income-generation have been supported by ActionAid Burundi. In the year 2000 there were nearly 120 micro-enterprise associations, involved in activities such as vegetable marketing and bicycle repair.
- Reflect participants discuss and analyse gender relations and develop more awareness. It is very difficult to change the status quo in Burundi, there is an entrenched mentality. However, activities such as gender calendars, which compare the workloads of men and women, have had impact and men have confessed to supporting their wives in home activities since being involved in such analysis.
- ActionAid has developed a community newspaper based on the Reflect discussions and structures, which is printed and distributed around the areas. This newspaper, EJO, and other activities aimed at sharing reliable information, including video, posters and cultural events, have added great value to the peace-building process. Reflect participants also share information with others in their surrounding area informally or through meetings.
Examples of graphics:
For example, tree graphics are developed by groups to explore the different causes and effects of the conflict. An example is shown, where the roots include ignorance, selfishness and segregation, and the results range from fleeing, poverty and vulnerability, to death and destruction of social cohesion. In other groups trees have been used to look at causes of selfishness; or maps to look at barriers to self-determined development.There is also new innovative work with Reflect and prison inmates. Also, the Reflect ICTs project has a pilot in Burundi, which looks at linking people's capacity to communicate and access to information with new and traditional information and communciation technologies.
Network: There is a national Reflect network in Burundi involving 11 institutions including the Dutch Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (DRA), the government non-formal education department and local NGOs (such as Women's Development Centre - CDF, and Association for Promotion of Women and Children - IGAA). ActionAid-Burundi has been elected to chair this network.
At the recent Reflect training in May 2004, facilitated by Diarra from West Africa, some strategies were devised to reinvigorate national networking. A committee was put in place to follow up these recommendations.
See also: Reflect ICTs project, pilot location profiles; Article from Education Action 15 (November 2001) on Peace Building through Communication in Burundi; Article from Education Action 13 (September 2000) The contribution of Reflect to peace building and reconciliation in Burundi and Peace Building in Burundi
Key contacts: Fidele Ndindiye, ActionAid Burundi, BP 2170, Bujumbura, Burundi
