After one year of its creation, the National Women’s Forum organized few activities due to the lack of funds. An interview with her Deputy President, Ménédore Nibaruta–By Diane Uwimana
Nibaruta Ménédore ©Iwacu
What are your achievements after one year of the forum creation?
We launched our activities exactly on 22 March 2013, at Bugenyuzi Commune in Karuzi Province. But we put in place our members’ office on 7 May 2013. We set up internal regulations. We paid different visits to our colleagues from Rwanda and Sudan (in Khartoum Town) to strengthen our experience and knowledge.
In addition, we carried out two kinds of sensitization sessions mainly on family plan and gender-based violence. The executive bureau took this opportunity to spread out the women’s forum missions. Five out of fifteen representatives in each Commune got the opportunity to take part in a workshop organized by the Forum to hear more about how we should well organize our forum at local level. We received BIF 50 million to put in place our different branches. The assistance is coming from UNFPA and Care Burundi. We also received BIF 75 million to help us elaborating our action plan.
While you were preparing elections, women from civil society rejected the way they were run, do you work closely with them today?
Yes, we work in partnership with them. If they organize any activity, they invite us and vice versa. They complained about the forum at that moment but now everything is nice, there is no way to cry out.
Are there any challenges?
The first big problem is the lack of funds. We have done few activities because we must go to the field and meet our members. The second one is the lack of offices. If someone looks for us, he/she hardly finds us because the forum’s members work in a separate place and not in a definite one.
Any idea to find the solution?
We continue to look for funds and organize many activities all over the country. Several Burundians still have in their mind that women must stay at home and supervise the household activities only. It is high time we woke up and acted.
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Women’s National Forum is a framework that allows you to:
-act as a framework and a legitimate institutional place that encourages listening and expression of the interests of all girls and women of all social strata of Burundi;
harmonize advocacy strategies in taking account the gender dimension in all sectors of national life;
-serve as a gathering open framework to guide and channel the actions of different stakeholders for the promotion and protection of women’s rights;
improve collaborative relationships between organizations, collectives and networks of women’s organizations, women leaders and women former dignitaries in order to increase the impact of the results through concerted and ripened approaches ;
-capitalize all capabilities and all women’s initiatives to contribute to the development of policies, programs and strategies to advance the legislation, ratification of the texts and laws for the improvement of the status of Burundian girls and women;
-represent Burundi at the Regional women’s Forum and reflect the image of the Regional Forum of women at the national level &
Strengthen the commitment and potential undeniable to women for stability and consolidation of peace, solidarity and reconciliation as well as community rehabilitation.
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