Marguerite Barankitse, Founder of Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi saved thousands of lives and cared for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi. She talked to Aurora about dignity, humanitarian support and changing the world  

2016 Aurora Prize Laureate on dignity, human spirit and changing the world

Armenia – the new home

I am deeply touched by the [Armenian] hospitality. Even in the hotel or in the street they welcome us like members of their family. Armenian people had suffered but they kept their dignity. They stand up. You can see it in their faces. You see how they love each other, how they respect the foreign people. Even the children. When I went to Karabakh, I was astonished. It gave me hope. What the Armenian people are for us, who are suffering, is so much –  it’s a good example. We can also restore our country, restore our lives. It has changed my own life completely because I was thinking, oh, what can I do? But now I have this good example, now I know. When I return to my homeland, now I see what I will do.

Impact of Aurora

When you lose everything, and you become a refugee, because they took all the money from the bank, they destroyed Maison Shalom. And then somebody calls you and wants to thank you for what you have done, console you, give you your dignity back, tell you, “don’t worry, my sister, come.” I came here, and I was consoled. I was encouraged to continue, and it changed my life. If you have nothing to feed your children with, if you can’t send your children back to school, back to university, and somebody calls you and gives you food to feed your children and money to send them back to school – how amazing is that?

First you must know that in the refugee camp, when children learnt that I was honored with this award, they danced and sang all night. It changed the refugee camp completely because they said, oh, they are so far away from us, but they want to alleviate our suffering. And now 378 young men will go back to university. They were there, sitting in a refugee camp, not even in a house but under a plastic cover, and today they are back at the university. You can see a photo of them. You can see the pictures of them dancing. This is how they are – they are dancing. Also, the mothers who had nothing to eat now sell fruit because they got microcredits. With this money, they can feed their children and pay the bills. And in Brazil, in the DRC, those children can receive education.

Continuing to spread compassion and love

It’s the children who helped me. It’s not the other way around. They changed my life, they filled it with meaning. What can I say? If you love children, they will spread this love surrounding them at school, at the hospital, everywhere. I have seen all those children who passed through Maison Shalom. Even now, when I see the young ones, today at universities, everybody speaks about those ten students we had sent to Lyon, France. They couldn’t believe they got to study again. Now, if you see what they have done in France and even in universities in Rwanda, those young people who have the money to resume their studies, they change. You can see them helping each other.

I am sure that if you give with humanity, there is a big difference. [One shouldn’t] be helped without dignity, without compassion, without love. You take the money and you say, OK, bye-bye, I will use it. And you never feel like they respect you. Humanitarian organizations must work with humanity, and that is a challenge. This is the big question in our lives, our daily lives. But when somebody gets help with humanity, he will continue to spread humanity, compassion and love. I am sure of that. 

On NGOs and saving the world

You don’t go somewhere to save the world. Some people think, oh, I’m going to save the world. Leave this world to God and go to visit, say, I go to see my brothers, my sisters, because we are a big family. In a family, each member has their competences – some will cook, others will go get water, or clean the house, or sing. When young people ask me if they can come help, I always say no. Take your talent and use it, it’s your duty. We have one human vocation – it’s to love. If you come without love, I say, I don’t need you.

You see, some come with arrogance – yes, we are going to save the world. For so many years they’ve been coming to Africa with their money, all those big, big organizations. You can see for yourself, go to the east of the Congo – there are more than 80 NGOs, and people continue to die. 

Even what they say, it’s a vocabulary we don’t understand. They are there, speaking of “strategy, mechanisms, statistics”, and I ask them, who understands your language? Because we don’t understand their vocabulary. Look how we live in a tent. I can show you that tent. Some cars are bigger than that tent. And when we ask, can you please give us money to send those children back to school? They answer, oh, we had a fundraising and we only have 1% of the money. What about your salaries and your cars? How much do you spend on hotels?

I want them to understand. When Burundian people are dying, we go to conferences to talk about the security in Burundi. After that we wait and two years pass. They are killing people, but they continue to come up with the vocabularies and not the solutions. I go to Geneva, I go to New York, always thinking, oh, this year they will decide to save us and to behave like one human family. That’s the humanitarian way – love, compassion and tolerance.

The dream is no war

My dream? No war. I dream of a world where there is no war because it is so stupid to kill each other when we know there are enough places in the world for everybody, enough to eat. Some are dying because they eat too much when the others die because they have nothing to eat. What is killing some can heal the others. Stop being stupid! Be one human family without war. I dream of a world that is good to live in.