Anastasie Nyirabashyitsi and Jeanette Mukabyagaju witnessed terrible crimes. But, in the government-approved reconciliation village where they have lived for 19 years, they have reached peaceful coexistence from opposite experiences.
In a community of genocide perpetrators and survivors outside the Rwandan capital of Kigali, more than half of 382 residents are women. Their collaboration on projects such as basket weaving has united many of them in a government-run reconciliation village, one of nine across Rwanda, where women are believed to be fostering a climate of tolerance. The villages were launched in 2005 as part of wider reconciliation efforts by Prison Fellowship Rwanda, a civic group. The organization wanted to create opportunities for genocide survivors to heal in conditions where they can regularly talk to perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. Some Rwandans see the project as an example of how people can peacefully coexist after the slaughter.