pagina47 IAK052
From human rights
to traditional drums:
The challenging life of a Burundian refugee
who escaped his killers and now works on ‘Kakuma Sound’!
The Burundian government wanted to kill me because of my human rights activism. Now I am teaching youth in refugee camp Kakuma our cultural traditions with the help of traditional Burundian drums. And I am participating in the new international music project ‘Kakuma Sound’ that will bring together all the nationalities in the camp.
My name is Niyonizigiye Emmanuel. I'm 50 years old and Burundian by nationality. I'm married and a father of two kids. I fled from Burundi in 2009, because of insecurity. In Burundi, I founded an organization called Foundation and Respect for Human Rights. So I was working for human rights. I was working together with nine co-founders. We collected and documented news, cases of injustice, issues regarding corruption, abuse of human rights and voices citizens. This was a risky job, because all corruption and abuse of human rights came from the side of the government. The government, the criminal investigation department (CID), discovered our work and realized that we were working against her interest. She planned to assassinate all of us and sent security personnel to our office. But luckily we saw them coming and managed to escape. They took everything that belonged to us: computers, documents and other important assets of our organization. In addition, the policemen were commanded to run after us and trace our hiding places. I was hiding in Romuge County and unfortunately after one week, one of the policemen found me and arrested me. I was to be killed immediately, because that was the order from the government. Two members of our group were already found and killed on the spot. However, through the will and mercy of God, the policeman who found me was the man whom I once defended in court. He recognized me and remembered the help I accorded him. He explained to me that the government was looking for us seriously and wanted us to be killed without trial. The man advised me to leave the country and seek refuge. 
And from there, I fled to Kakuma. That was in June 2009. I found life in Kakuma miserable and difficult because everything was different. I did not like the food, the hot and dry climate and the small mud houses. The most annoying thing was the toilet I was using as bathroom as well as room for releasing waste. My life in Kakuma is the opposite of my life in Burundi. In Burundi I was rich! I had everything. Concrete building, cars, money, a fishing boat. Besides, I was used to an office job because I was the president of our organization. Therefore it was hard for me to adapt to doing manual jobs in Kakuma, like making bricks and cleaning the roadsides. At first I was full of ignorance. I did not want to do such small terrible jobs. But later life taught me to do such jobs. I tried very hard to adapt to the new environment. And slowly and surely I got used to it. But still I was worried about my family. I left my wife and two kids in Burundi and I did not know about their situation. I wanted to bring them to Kakuma to stay with me. And finally I managed to make the connection and I brought them to Kakuma. That was in 2013. But surviving in Kakuma was getting tougher and I had to do something about it. I requested my friends to help me with some money in order to start a small business. They were good friends. They contributed 100 USD. I started a small business with this money. I bought a goat every day and roasted it in the evening. People came in at large numbers to eat the meat and I was getting at least something small to support my family. Later, my wife got a job with the Red Cross and life was becoming better. And I wanted to do something for the Burundian culture in the camp. Burundians are many and new generations are coming up and they should know their culture. From these observations, the idea of Burundian drummers came into my mind. In 1978, when I was in a primary school, our teachers taught us the importance of our culture. We used to have traditional dance competitions and sometimes our school emerged as the best. We were well trained on how to dance and play the drums. Besides, we were taught the importance of the values, customs and norms of our culture. Therefore, in Kakuma I decided to volunteer myself to bring together all the interested children and youth from Burundian communities and teach them about the culture of our people. I teach these youth on how to dance traditionally and play the traditional drums. They have now been performing in different events in Kakuma, like in Kakuma Got Talent, during World Refugee day, and at other events. They are doing well in every occasion and that is my happiness. The idea of Burundian drummers is important because it teaches the youth the importance of culture. And culture is important because it teaches youth to learn the values, norms, customs and history of the community. Furthermore, culture is used to pass the values, customs, and norms of the community from one generation to another. In addition, Burundian drummers are important because they bring people from different tribes together and learn from each other. This creates mutual interaction hence it is a vital tool of preaching peace. When people share ideas and dance together, they feel the sense of togetherness. The Burundi drummers have joined Kakuma Sound recently. Kakuma Sound is a project or platform where people from different nationalities freely represent and show off their cultures to others. Kakuma Sound is important because it creates and gives opportunities to people to embrace and learn from the cultures of diverse communities. This will enhance peaceful co-existent among the refugees in Kakuma. Besides, it will bring cultural interaction and integration. Lastly, we would like other nationalities to join us and show off their cultures to the rest of the world.
Interested to get into contact with Emmanuel? Email: info@i-am-kakuma.online