Sekou becomes wistful when I ask him about his village. “Before, things were good. At night, we’d sit around the campfire and tell stories with our parents. And during the day, we’d dance and play the drums.” He comes from a tiny village in Mopti, the central region of Mali that has increasingly become the theater of violence and… Read more →←
Author: Eliane Luthi
“I am used to the difficulties,” says Cira Kanote, 16. Bent over a muddy river with her baby daughter Daby tied to her back, she scoops up some dirt in her calabash, a container made of gourd, and carefully sifts through it. Married when she was only 14, Cira became pregnant immediately by her 36 year old husband. The… Read more →←
This week, we are paying tribute to an amazing voice for children in Burundi who left our world too early. UNICEF is extremely sad to report that Carlène Kaneza, 16, child journalist and U-Reporter with UNICEF Burundi, passed away last week following a long struggle with illness. She was brave, intelligent, and possessed enormous… Read more →←
It is a warm Tuesday morning in Bujumbura, Burundi. The sun is shining and birds are chirping. On my way to work, I am called by our Child Protection Specialist, who has just had news that a one-year-old baby has died in grenade fire in the eastern province of Ruyigi. A few hours later, the news is confirmed. The baby becomes the… Read more →←
“We heard a lot of gunshots where we live, in Musaga,” Brice, 7, tells me. “I was scared, I cried all the time.” Brice is one of more than hundred children currently being temporarily sheltered by a faith-based organization in Burundi’s capital city, Bujumbura. These children are from the neighborhoods in Bujumbura that have… Read more →←
It’s an overcast Sunday afternoon and I am on the shores of Lake Tanganyika with a group of children, some local musicians and a camera crew. The hills on the Congolese side of the lake are barely visible through the haze. We’re gathered here to shoot the Burundi version of the famous song Imagine, John Lennon’s classic hymn to… Read more →←
In Burundi, where infrastructure challenges abound, making sure children and young people can speak up about the issues they face can be an enormous challenge. And in Burundi, making sure children can speak up means not only fulfilling a basic right of theirs, it’s also very logical. Youth under 18 make up 51% of the population here… Read more →←
The sun is setting, and I have just flown into Bonn, Germany, with Peace Sekamwese, a 16-year-old child journalist from Burundi. It’s Peace’s first time outside of East Africa – and she is over the moon. She’s here to participate in the WorldWeWant.de consultations, alongside an inspiring mix of 19 other young people from the… Read more →←
