Meet Florida Ngendakuriyo, a peacemaker in Burundi’s Mpanda community
At 45 and a mother of 7, Florida has been appointed as head of four mediators known as Abakanguriramahoro who have been elected in the commune of Mpanda. Florida Ngendakuriyo is her name, a woman who lives in Gahwazi I hills, Mpanda commune in the province of Bubanza in Burundi. Her role is unique, she is a peace maker.
“Our role is to resolve disputes and transmit reports to the higher hierarchy,” Ngendakuriyo told Burundi Eco, a media based in the country.
Her responsibility as a mediator particularly comes into play during the harvest season in the province where domestic violence is prevalent in many households.
During this period, some husbands and men take the produce of their wives from the farms and sell them. They also take concubines in the process and some of these women destroy families, this is where her role comes in as a mediator.
“They spend their time consuming the sweat of their wives in bars and sometimes they take concubines.
“It's been a while since we were putting a group of women in the commune of Gihanga, province of Bubanza, out of harm's way, who had set themselves the objective of destroying families," she told Burundi Eco.
One challenge she mentioned was how the police reacted to such cases. According to Ngendakuriyo, police sometimes release culprits who are submitted to them without executing any form of punishment.
She has formed 11 women’s associations, bringing in between 10 and 15 women in each group in the commune of Mpanda. These women groups support each other through group trading of local produce including palm oil, rice, corn and others.
Ngendakuriyo also told Burundi Eco that some of these women who work alone request credits from microfinance such as CECM and Eden Microfinance.
As more women seek mediation in the area, leading mediators like Ngendakuriyo have also begun training other mediators to take over from them when they retire to keep the peace and development in the community.
