by Christiane Garin

‘We have appreciated hearing that the Creators of Peace Circles could help us to express and untie what is weighing on our hearts’, said a simple colline (hill) peasant woman in Burundi after hearing in January about the Peace Circles process from Daphrose Ntarataze, a Burundian now living in Geneva, Switzerland.

She had been invited by Terre des Hommes, an international NGO caring for vulnerable children based in Switzerland. Terre des Hommes is interested in the ideas developed in the Peace Circles, with a view to enhancing the capacity of these women who have themselves been the victims of the historical violence, to assist peaceful development in their poverty-stricken areas. 'I have been carrying such a huge abcess for so long! I am already starting to feel a little better just at the idea that you will help me to burst it open by helping me to free myself by talking about it in full confidence’, said another woman who was very moved.

Daphrose wants to share with her fellow countrywomen about her experiences of liberation and the new freedom from fear and from bitterness that she found when she joined the Creators of Peace network at the Kampala CoP Conference in 2005. After training as a CoPC facilitator, she is now offering to lead Peace Circles for small groups of Burundian women who are looking after vulnerable and orphaned children in their hill villages, following many years of inter-ethnic violence that destroyed the family and cultural structures of Burundi.

Terre des Hommes NGO invited Daphrose for an exploratory visit to her country to get to know the Terre des Hommes team and to explore the possibility of leading Peace Circles there together with them. She was joined by Christiane Garin Al-Azhari, President of the Creators of Peace Association, who also had the opportunity to present the history and methodology of the Creators of Peace network to the staff at Terre des Hommes.

While there, they also had the opportunity to present the Creators of Peace Circles to some of the leading Bujumbura women working in education and politics and also to the wives of opposition politicians connected with the small Initiatives of Change team, for a reconciliaiton dialogue in the country. The women expressed the need for that kind of approach and requested that Peace Circles be organised as soon as possible to help them in their efforts to rebuild the trust needed to consolidate a lasting and sustainable peace in their country.

Daphrose is also starting a Creators of Peace Circle for a group of exiled women now living in Geneva, where the need for reconciliation is just as great as in their original country.