Another virus that people have to live with
kanthari TALKS, December 2015:
After a brief introduction of the next speaker, the audience is prepared for what is coming. Suddenly the hall is filled with silence. It seems that even the crows in front of the auditorium have stopped their eternal croaking to listen to an eyewitness. It was the last time we heard Manzi speak about his past. But this last time was mesmerizing.
“Once upon a time there was a country, called a land with a thousand hills. The landscape was breath taking, the volcanoes, the dense forests, the calm lakes and rivers, the green vegetation. In this country people shared the same norms and language, they lived together in harmony, in the backyards you could see happy children playing hide and seek, and the women sat together, weaving baskets. There was a coexistence of all people, regardless of tribes, race, religion. There was peace everywhere. ladies and gentlemen, the country I am talking about is Rwanda.”
And then suddenly we hear an excess of violence, screams, breaking glass, splintering wood, gunshots and helplessly crying children everywhere. Over the next few minutes, Manzi, from the perspective of a small boy shared with us how he experienced the genocide.
I had already been reading up about the genocide in Rwanda several years before Manzi came to kanthari. But to hear the story first-hand from the point of view of a seven-year-old boy and his two years older sister was more disturbing than all the films and articles I had come across up till then.
Manzi and his sister belonged to a Tutsi family. The parents, threatened by their own neighbors who were Hutus, saw no other option but to flee, leaving their youngest children behind, knowingly that they most likely would be brutally murdered like so many other children. Manzi and his sister were not killed… instead Manzi witnessed his sister being raped by multiple attackers. Luckily, they managed to escape and had no other choice than to stay in a refugee camp in Uganda for several years.
Later, Manzi was lucky, he could go to school and even study at the university in Kampala. His sister, like most girls from the refugee camps, did not have a chance to go to school. One day, upon a medical test, she got the diagnosis: like thousands of other children who were abused and able to flee from Rwanda, she was tested HIV positive.
20 years later her younger brother Norman Manzi is on stage in front of a spellbound audience. He doesn’t tell much of his story, because, as he once explained to me: “Many people here have overcome similar hardships and instead of bringing up negative feelings, it is important to now look at what is ahead of us. ”
And that is how his organization “Dream Village” was initiated.
Dream Village is a center where young HIV positive people learn to accept their life with the virus, align it and create a future for HIV positive people.
“It is believed that the HIV virus is a death sentence. But life is far from over! With a healthy lifestyle and well-adjusted medication, people who are HIV positive can grow old. They can give birth to HIV negative children. So, our thought was, why can’t they start their own projects?”
Today, five years later, there are more than 5000 HIV positive people who are in some or the other way supported by Manzi’s “Dream village”, either through training or psycho-social counselling. The training is organized in cooperation with ministries and is mainly carried out by HIV infected people. Peer education is the key. They know exactly what is important and can give proper advice to frightened young people who have recently been diagnozed. It is about healthy food, sports, regular intake of medication and it is about them acting responsibly and determining their future independently.
Having worked out of rented offices in the past, Manzi was in the process of constructing Dream Village’s own buildings when Corona knocked on Rwanda’s door. Because his target group that, with neglected care, is definitely is at high-risk, he and his team were extremely alert. “We were mostly concerned about the supply of the antiretroviral drugs that suppress the HIV infection. What if international flights were cancelled? How could the medicine then get to Rwanda?” Luckily, the health department had taken precautions already. The available stock has all registered HIV patients in Rwanda covered for at least a year,
“But then there was the next problem: how could our beneficiaries get their medication during the lockdown period. There was no public transport.”
Manzi has a permanent team of 15 young people, all who are HIV positive. Working together with the government, his organization was given permission and even motorcycles to distribute the medicine to all who were in need.
“In the meantime, the curfew has been partly lifted. Of course, we all still must wear masks.
Our Dream Village members have learned to live with one virus, now we all need to work together to get a grip on Corona”.