Mother and child walking in Rwanda. Photo by Guenay Ulutuncok

April 11, 2011: April is Genocide Awareness Month, a time to remember that genocide, which people can sometimes view as abstract, comes down to very real individual tragedies.

Take the story of Bridgette (name has been changed), today an SOS Mother in Rwanda. On April 7, 1994, she was a young mother living in eastern Rwanda, about 60 miles from the capital, Kigali, when she found herself in a hardship most of us cannot imagine. The cause: searing ethnic strife between Hutus and Tutsis, unleashing violence that killed up to a million people in three months. No one was spared.

“In the early hours, armed people attacked us with machetes, lances, knives, tomahawks, and swords,” says Bridgette. “Everyone at home was bludgeoned to death, blaming us for having killed President Juvénal Habyarimana, which was not true. My baby died after being knocked off my back; my elder son and his father were cut into two; my brothers, my sisters, and my mother were chopped like meat.”

Bridgette doesn’t know how she survived the attack. Neighbors extracted her from among the corpses in her burned house. She was moved from house to house, hiding until each in turn became too dangerous to stay in. Somehow, she managed to stay alive.

SOS children playing at the playground in Rwanda. Photo from SOS Archives

Finding SOS Children’s Villages

Bridgette’s story, which she still tells in a trembling voice many years after the slaughter, has a good ending. Several years after the massacre, she heard a radio ad recruiting SOS Aunties (family helpers) at SOS Children’s Villages in Rwanda.

“What interested me was that I would be engaged with children who needed a mother. This was enough to restore my morale.” After a year, Bridgette was promoted from SOS Auntie to SOS Mother. Today, she cares for ten children. “I love them and listen to them. I try daily to give them the best education, which will help them become good citizens of our nation.”

Bridgette says that in the SOS Children’s Village she found a supportive community where people help each other regardless of religion or ethnicity. “Today, I feel good because I am useful to society. I think that the Almighty God kept me alive so that I could be a parent here.”

Rwandan Children Who Rely on Mothers Like Bridgette

Among the children SOS Mothers like Bridgette are caring for is Dylan (name has been changed), found near a hospital during the genocide and admitted to SOS in Kigali in July 1994, when he was a few months old.

Although Dylan, now a teenager, is too young to remember the genocide, it has scarred him nonetheless. “My SOS Mother is the only parent I have. I know I will never see my biological family because they were all killed. I often think of my mother and my father, even though I have never met them or know what they look like.” Every April 7, when Rwandan media commemorate the people killed in 1994, “I cry and refuse to watch television or listen to the radio.”

Children at an SOS Village in Rwanda. Photo from SOS Archives

SOS has been in Rwanda since 1979, providing children with a safe haven and loving homes throughout dangerous civil war conditions. Through its three SOS Children’s Villages and a complement of schools, clinics, and counseling centers, SOS makes sure that the children under its care receive the love, education, medical attention, and supportive environment that every orphaned child deserves.

You can help SOS care for the victims of genocide in Rwanda and other countries.  Become a Global Village Builder. By giving just $12 every month, you can provide love and support to families when they are going through the most difficult times of their lives.

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