4.10.2010

We named our community center at our clinic in Kigutu, Burundi, Rumuri House, light house in Kirundi, the language spoken in rural Burundi where we work. The name implies leading and teaching right, the opposite of misleading. May its flame burn bright.

The day began early with workers tidying up. For those guests who arrived early, there were tours of the premises, including our food security work and solar farm. At 10:30 a.m. sharp, our drummers kicked off the day. What’s remarkable is that two of the key drummers are on our staff, Peter IT (you can guess his job) and Mandela, spend many hours per week working with the young children of the community and today we saw it paying off. Young boys demonstrating their talents in front of the large crowd that had gathered. The dances told a message of unity and togetherness: our theme.

Drummers and dancers kick off the grand opening.

A moment I will not forget is the community entering the campus together, led by the women, carrying drinks on their heads, the containers traditionally wrapped in palm leaves to indicate a gift, something you bring to a friend’s house. They came in singing softly, trailed by masses of community members and children. We cannot do our work without this community’s support and engagement so seeing this enormous show of support and love was deeply moving. We are, somehow, doing the right thing!

At the actual event, Dr. Melino spoke directly to our team of Community Health Workers. He admonished them to never give up, to continue learning about health education and being the bridge between our clinic and the community.

Dr. Theodore and Marianna, both In-Country Executive Council Committee members also came. The representative from the Ministry of Health showed an outpouring of support to Village Health Works and said he hoped our center would be a lighthouse and model for all of Bururi Province (where we are located) and far beyond. We plan to exceed his expectations!

And then there was the girls choir! Exuberant! Dr. Junior Bazile, our Haitian Medical Director, accompanied them on guitar. Bazile is working in Burundi when his home in Haiti is devastated because there are people helping his home and he wants to help someone else’s home. Poverty looks the same. Here in Burundi, one of the poorest countries on the planet, the need is enormous. But there is something we can all do.

Here’s an excerpt from my speech. I cannot quite express the feeling in the room, having so many community members there, the sense of ownership felt mighty. This was the first big gathering after Claude’s death nearly one year ago. We needed this celebration.

Today we celebrate with you the opening of our community center, which we hope will be a true home and haven, a metaphorical center of our work, which is about learning and growth. We envision this as a place of knowledge building and sharing for our community health workers and our committees, for our nurses and clinicians. For our children. A roof to gather under for celebrations like this.

Village Health Works is here now, two years after opening our clinic doors, not because of our own strength, but because of the community who showed up to make the bricks to build the walls, who cleared the road by hand, who still show up to volunteer in landscaping. Many of you were here with Deo before there was anything on this land. Bosco, Masambiro, Ntabajana, Masinde.
Please stand.

This is not the community I was born into. I come from another community far far away in the southern part of the United States. The community I was born into suffers from much of the same poverty, much of the same neglect, but I have come to this place with deep passion and commitment to our core vision that all people are entitled to basic things necessary in order to live: food, clean water and proper shelter. We believe that quality health care in a dignified environment is a must, especially for those most in need, but that our work must go beyond that to be truly effective. I am part of that global community who believes.

And there are others: There are those who contributed financially so that we could build this place: Anne Peretz, a painter from the United States (whom many of you met in January); Dan Nova, a man who is greatly interested in healthcare and Andrew Suchoki and Ride for World Heath where hundreds of doctors rode their bicycles for miles to raise money for Village Health Works in Burundi, a country most had never heard of.

But our most powerful community is you, those who live here in Kigutu and the surrounding communities, those whose lives depend on our being here. This is your clinic and it cannot exist without you. This organization is not interested in giving handouts, we are interested in linking arms, in pooling resources of all kinds, we are interested in unity not division.

The global community surrounds all of us here. And our community is big and growing and great and powerful. This is a place of unity and compassion and justice and love. A place of healing. We really do believe what we say: Where there is health, there is hope.

After the celebration, our campus, beautifully landscaped, became a park where community members sat and connected with each other. Rumuri House, built for 1/4 of what it would cost elsewhere, is already being greatly used. Yet another example of how investing in Kigutu and our work goes a mighty long way to actually impacting lives and creating change.

Looking forward to a major celebration when we open our Women’s Health Pavilion at the end of the year. Stay tuned!

We still need to furnish our community center. If you’d like to help, please email us at donate@villagehealthworks.org.

Amahoro! (Peace in Kirundi)

Sarah Broom
Executive Director