Youth for Development Prize 2005
Peace

Project name:
Scoutisme dans la promotion de la paix
(Scouting and peace promotion)
Country: Burundi

Team members

1. NIYONGABO Innocent
2. RUBABAZA Jérémie
3. NZEYIMANA Richard
4. UWIZEYIMANA Gédéon
5. NGOMANZIZA Alfred-Frank
6. NKESHIMANA Sylvie
7. HAKIZIMANA Désiré

General description:

Since the social and political crisis broke out in Burundi, young people have experienced serious problems in displaced persons camps. For instance, an increase in high-risk behaviour has led to a rise in the rate of HIV-infection. The Burundi Scouting Association has always worked hard to occupy young people, organising work camps and providing training for repatriation, reconciliation, the peaceful settlement of conflicts, active non-violence and peace agreements.  Young people who have benefited from this type of training have returned to their places of origin to spread the teaching they have received.Activities of this kind were the basis for the Sub-Regional Jamboree which took place at RUKECO in NGOZI Province, where more than 1000 young people from the Great Lakes region met with the same purpose in mind.  However, these activities have been restricted by the warfare that has continued to devastate our country, and many places were not suitable for this reason.They took place in areas which seemed to offer security, but where shelling was still a possibility.  These areas were not particularly favourable for us  Scouts, who love the natural world.  

We would point out that Peace Education, which is the principal objective of our TREK, is one of the chief concerns of the Great Lakes Scouting Partnership in the sub-region generally, and in the Northern Region of our country in particular.This is why the NGOZI Region Scouts wanted to inform young people from the other scouting regions of the lessons they learned during the training sessions held on 12th and 13th February 2005, which were led by the President and Permanent Executive Secretary of the Partnership.Using survey techniques they had devised themselves, the  Scouts of the NGOZI region, supported by the IMPESSA Clan, concluded that the peace agreements signed by the Protagonists had borne fruit in 16 of our country’s 17 provinces.Consequently, 140 Scouts from the NGOZI Region, and 10 others from the provinces of Kirundo and Muramvya, decided to express their delight by TREKING from NGOZI to BUJUMBURA (150 km), by climbing mountains and leaving edifying peace messages, both written and verbal, in the places they passed through, and by taking the opportunity to practice their scouting skills.  This trek took place on 27, 28 and 29 May 2005, under the banner of:“Scouting to promote peace”.

Summary of accomplishments:

We performed many activities in the course of this trek:

Leaving written peace messages in the places we passed through,

Singing peace songs and chanting slogans along the way,

Organising activities in the places we stopped at,

Performing sketches and reciting poems late into the evening at overnight stopping places.

The results can be summarised as follows:

• More than 150 Scouts were informed of the security situation in Burundi following signature of the peace agreements.
• They were made aware of the disastrous consequences of the war, including the spread of HIV/AIDS.
• The 150 Scouts and the people of Bukeye were informed of the problems of life in refugee camps through talks and a “cultural evening”.
• The Scouts have already begun to disseminate this information in their troupes.
• The whole nation took an interest in the peace messages we left along our route.  
• The trek coincided with the election campaign.Some politicians we met expressed admiration with what we were doing and felt constrained to stop their meetings and come and lend us their support.We took this opportunity to communicate with them on the subject of peace.
• The peace songs and slogans composed and chanted by the Scouts so aroused people’s interest that they accompanied us for several kilometres.We are still receiving requests for the words of the songs and slogans.
• The sketches and poems on the subject of peace and reconciliation aroused the interest of the Scouts and people of Bukeye.
• The grandfathers and grandmothers we met along the way embraced us, because they had undertaken similar treks in the past.They were pleased to see us following in their footsteps,and concluded that peaceful co-existence between the peoples of Burundi was at last being restored.

The Burundian people were so interested in our trek that we are still continuing to receive messages of thanks.Moreover, people were convinced that peace was gradually returning, because we visited places that had been inaccessible before the peace agreements were signed.

The Youth for Development Prize is awarded every year to teams of young people who have run innovative projects in the framework of the Millennium Development Goals, in the fields of environment, development or peace.

The Youth for Development Prize is granted by a World Jury formed of world renewed experts in the fields of environment, development and peace.

Around the world many groups of young people are developing projects within their communities to improve the conditions of life, protect the environment, challenges prejudices and make the world a better place. Our aim is to collect information on these projects and to encourage more young people to develop new projects related to the Millennium Development Goals and to improve their quality and their impact.