Our Stories

Mr KARIBUSHIRE Family

Mr KARIBUSHIRE Emanuel is a man of Ruhanga village, Ruhanga cell, Rusarabuye sector of Burera District in Northern Province. He got married with Ms MUKANKUNSI Dorothee and they have 8 children.

The people of Ruhanga cell knew the situation of this family and testified that him and his wife were living in extreme family conflicts. They used to practice violence each other, consequently their 8 children lived in bad conditions of life and some of them preferred to leave their parents.

After many years, the husband violated her wife physically and psychologically. Sometime the husband left the family and her wife stayed home alone with the youngest children. In the nearest years, the husband came back home with a decision to kill her wife. They lived in the same house but the husband slept in the bed room with machete and the wife slept in sitting room with an old hoe. Every day they were in disputes and many times the husband beats her wife without any cause.

Near of their house, there is an EDV working group that meets every week and her wife is one of the group members. One day, the husband was passing around when the group was in training on family conflicts topic. He stopped behind the group and tried to listen to the discussions carefully. When the gender focal point finished to train, the husband approached him and said ‘’ tell that woman (my wife) that she is very difficult and complicated at home. Ask my wife the situation that we are living in our family. Really are you able to change that woman from their misbehaviors?’’. Then, the gender focal point planned and decided to visit this family as much times as he can with the support of the field officer. At the end of the first visit, both (Husband and wife) accepted to reject their bed arms (machete for husband and old hoe for wife). At the end of the second visit, the husband accepted to let wife entry into the bed-room with her mattress affront of husband’s bed. On the third visit all of them were committed to share one bed but use the different blankets and bed sheets. That means everyone had his/her own blankets and bed sheets.

At the end of the fourth visit, they accepted to share one bed, same blanket and bed sheets. They spent the whole night together without any obstacles in the bed room. Now on, they live in peace in their family and the signs of change are really visible. They are applauding the ADTS and their gender focal points as role model to make change and to fight for peace in families.

INGABIRE Jean Paul

ADTS field officer

HABIMANA Bonaventure

My name is HABIMANA Bonaventure, I have been trained in the matter of fighting domestic violence. I can say that we received talents and those talents are producing. We sacrificed ourselves because we knew our target. I’m very happy to share my testimony. When I received the first training in August 2012, our marriage was not legalized; I thought that we would legalize our marriage when we will have a lot of money to organize an impressive party. After training in collaboration with others couples, we were able to organize our legal marriage. Before, I had planned to do some extraordinary thing with many important persons escorting me, briefly I was overconfident. My mind had been changed; we organized a simple party without spending much money.

Now we have 2 children (Girl and boy), I treat them with love and respect. Before training, I didn’t care about my children, sometimes I took “mutzing” without thinking about the ways of feeding my family or buying school materials for my children. I took this as a duty of my wife. Now, (after training on fighting domestic violence) I manage to be with my children, even in praying at the parish. This is the fruit of being trained. Regarding my work of farming (agriculture), I do it very well and I use to help my wife in domestic activities. Some people started saying that she poisoned me. Others say that she is like my sister. All these rumors can’t do anything on our good relationship. We pray God, now she has a mobile phone, we can communicate easily even when we are not together.

His wife MUKAREMERA Jacqueline

"Thank you! I thank God for these trainings from ADTS on fighting domestic violence that we benefited. Sometimes, we had some misunderstandings, and my husband refused to apologize for his errors. But now, if we have such problems, we sit together and look for a solution peacefully. If it is a problem that requires an intervention of a third person, we, do it by consensus. These trainings helped us to have a same vision of things, we are very thankful to ADTS."

Testimonials