By Parfaite Ntahuba | Project Leader
GlobalGiving June 2026 Narrative Report
From February 2026 to April 2026, different activities were done: trauma healing workshops, Self-help groups (SHGs), Income generating activities and the Women’s Socio-Economic Empowerment Center (WSEEC) Project.
The FWA did two trauma healing workshops for a total of 40 gender-based violence survivors. The dates were March 23-25, 2026 and April 20-22, 2026. Both of them were done at in Maramvya in Bujumbura province. Participants were gender-based violence survivors.
Stories
“My husband took me to Maramvya, far from our home village. Later, he abandoned me with our four children in a rented house that I had to pay for on my own. Life became very difficult, especially when I fell ill and suffered from severe back pain that prevented me from working. In my distress, I remarried, but this man also got me pregnant and then abandoned me. Meanwhile, my first husband’s family asked me to return and take care of the children. I went back in fear, but after only seven days, he tried to kill me. I ran away to save my life. I now live in fear and instability, moving from one house to another with my child, depending on the mercy of others. My four other children live in different homes, and it pains me that I cannot see them freely. I am deeply traumatized, without hope or direction.But through the trauma healing workshop, my life began to change. I realized that I was not alone and that my pain was real but could be healed. I learned how to express my emotions and release the fear and shame I had been carrying. Little by little, I found inner peace”.
“I got married to a man, and at the beginning everything was going well. But over time, he changed. He started beating me over small mistakes. As days went by, the situation became worse. He would not even greet me when he came home, and our household was full of conflict. When I became pregnant, he showed no compassion. He continued to abuse me. One day, when I was six months pregnant, he beat me severely simply because I asked him about his behavior. I lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital. That incident deeply affected me. It was at that moment that I mourned my marriage and realized that I no longer had a husband. I returned home, but to me, he was like someone who had died. I bought everything I needed for childbirth by myself and hid it at a neighbor’s house. Until the day I gave birth, I did not tell him anything, because I felt he did not deserve to be shared that good news. This hurt him, but after a few months, he started again with his violent and strange behavior. I then decided to separate from him. Today, I live alone with my three children.
What marked me most during this workshop is that I now feel normal. Before, I felt ashamed, as if there was a voice telling me I had done wrong to leave my husband, that I should have endured everything like a “true Burundian woman.” That feeling has disappeared. Today, I accept myself as I am.”
2. Self-Help Groups (SHGs)
Self Help Groups (SHGs). The Rape Survivors’ Support (RSS) program of the Friends Women’s Association currently has established 79 Self Help Groups
Members consistently saved and accessed repayable loans, strengthening their household economic stability and increasing their ability to cope with financial challenges.
One member shares her story:
“When FWA found me in 2018, I was living in extreme poverty. Although my husband works, He struggles with alcoholism. Whenever He secured a new contract, He would take a loan and spend the money on alcohol, leaving our family in deeper poverty. All responsibilities fell on me, and I had four children to care for.
We did not even own a single chair. My children slept on a mat on the floor. I was not allowed to engage in any income-generating activity. I felt trapped, hopeless, and alone.
Everything began to change when a social worker visited my home during door to door sensitization about savings groups. I decided to join. In my first year, I saved 30,000 BIF, and at the share out, I received 70,000 BIF as interest. With that money, I started a small fruit selling business.
Today, I can feed my family, pay rent, and cover my children’s school fees. Beyond financial improvement, FWA helped me heal from the inner wounds caused by gender-based violence through trauma healing workshops. In this community, I found trusted friends who support me every week.
FWA did not only change my income it restored my dignity, strengthened my confidence, and taught me how to be resilient and self-reliant.”
From Abandonment to Ownership
“My name is Gloriose. There was a time when I had a family, a home, and hope for the future. My husband and I worked hard together. We acquired land and built house in Bujumbura. I believed we were building a secure life side by side.
Then one day, everything collapsed. He abandoned me for another woman. Because I was not legally married, I had no rights. I lost everything we had built together. Even worse, he took our two sons from me. The woman who once lived in relative comfort suddenly found herself alone, rejected, and living in a tiny rented room in extreme poverty. I felt humiliated. I felt broken. I felt invisible.
But that was not the end of my story. When I joined FWA, I did not join as a strong woman. I joined as someone trying to survive. I started a small restaurant business just to eat and pay rent. It was survival not vision. But FWA gave me something more powerful than money. It gave me a new mindset and a new fire inside.
Seeing other women saving consistently awakened something in me. Watching them buy plots of land stirred a deep determination in my heart. I refused to remain a victim of my past. I refused to let abandonment define my future. That “holy dissatisfaction” pushed me to try again and again. I explored new business ideas until I stepped into cross-border trade. I began selling beans in Congo and bringing back African fabric and cooking oil to sell in Burundi.
It was not easy. It required courage. It required risk. It required faith in me. But within just one year, the impossible happened. I bought my own plot of land worth 5,000,000 BIF in Mutimbuzi. The woman who once lost everything became a landowner again this time by her own strength.
Today, I stand not as a victim, but as proof that economic empowerment restores dignity, rebuilds confidence, and strengthens decision making power. I am financially independent. I am rebuilding my future with vision and determination.”
3. Income Generating Activities
On April 7, 2026 there wa rice harvest in Maramvya. This is a project initiated by a group of GBV survivors after a three-day trauma healing workshop. This is their second harvest.
4. Women’s Socio-Economic Empowerment Center (WSEEC)
The Women’s Socio-Economic Empowement Center (WSEEC) is a new project that the FWA has started in the month of Jul 2024 under the support of the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) of the Friends Peace Teams) and the Canadian Friends Service Committee. The aim is to avail training rooms and a temporary safe shelter for gender-based violence survivors at the FWA headquarters. This project will cost $200,000. We have so far mobilized $81,600 including $21,600 from The African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams, $10,000 from the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC) and $50,000 from the Segal Family Foundation (SFF).
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