
1 of 84 million: Sifa’s life of despair and displacement, resilience, courage and hope
I met an extraordinary woman in the maily Congolese Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement in Western Uganda whose story has stayed with me ever since.
I met an extraordinary woman in the maily Congolese Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement in Western Uganda whose story has stayed with me ever since.
Like so many children in Rwanda at that time, this sweet adolescent boy was the head-of-his-household and responsible for raising his siblings on his own.
When asked if he had to choose between his wind-up radio or his cow, he didn’t hesitate. Fordward, an 18-year-old Rwandan head of household said, “I shall choose my radio, because a cow doesn’t give me information.”
World headlines fixated on one event – the culmination of the long march to democracy in South Africa and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela. As Western media seem to feature one African story at a time, another African event was a footnote: an ‘African tribal war’ in a country not many had heard of.