For the past fifteen years, since the widespread violence between its two predominant tribes in 1993, Burundi has been slowly recovering. The Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities programs, sponsored by Friends (Quaker) Peace Teams, provides one prong of leadership in this effort.

The Friends Peace Teams program describes the HROC efforts thus:

These programs focus on building safety and trust, on integrating trauma experiences into people's everyday lives (so that the trauma is less likely to be the focal point of the person's life), on reconnecting and rebuilding relationships, and on educating people about other war-related problems (such as AIDS & gender conflicts) in order to be peacefully resolved.

HROC workshops bring together equal numbers of Hutus and Tutsis, the two predominant tribes who fought in the war, helping them talk to one another and move beyond their fear and trauma.

According to David Zarembka, coordinator of Friends Peace Teams work in the African Great Lakes region, in a recent HROC workshop, the leader invited a particular Tutsi man and his Hutu neighbor to participate in a workshop. Knowing there were unresolved issues between the two men, the leader asked them to take the courageous step of talking honestly with one another in the context of the workshop.

During the workshop the Tutsi man pointed to the Hutu man, claiming that he had tracked him during the 1993 violence, leading a Hutu gang to attack him with machetes. He survived that attack, and after he recovered and returned home, the Hutu man tracked him again and he was attacked again. He recovered again and returned home. Now whenever he walked down the road and saw the Hutu man, he became afraid. He would stop or detour until the Hutu man was out of sight.

Through the difficult work of listening to one another and forgiving, the two men opened their hearts to one another. They moved beyond fear and suspicion to a place of healing and reconciliation. After fifteen years, a festering wound was healed. Reports Zarembka, “On the third day of the workshop, the Tutsi man gave the Hutu man a ride home on the seat behind him on his bicycle.”

HROC workshops are full of miracles like this one. Neighbors become neighbors again. Fear and suspicion melt. Hearts, once closed, are re-opened.

The work of healing and reconciliation is never easy. Yet when people are willing to take the first step of opening their hearts and becoming leaders for peace, anything can happen.

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Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations," and "The Soul of a Leader: Finding Your Path to Success and Fulfillment," works with leaders in business, healthcare, churches, government and non-profits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Visit her website at www.ExecutiveSoul.com. © Copyright 2008 by Margaret Benefiel.