SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 2008 D1

MONITOR
Editor: Phil Jang > Telephone: 995-4443 > E-mail: pjang@tc.canwest.com

From despair to dignity

In Rwanda, a bustling clinic propels women’s recovery from rape, effects of genocide

SARAH PETRESCU
spetrescu@tc.canwest.com

KIGALI, Rwanda

ozens of women

D chatted while tod-

dlers played and
babies cried in the
waiting room at the
downtown Kigali health clinic
run by the U.S.-based Women’s
Equity to Access for Care and
Treatment, or WE-ACTx.
The bustling, cheery atmos-
phere of the clinic contrasts
with the grim reason it exists
— to bring treatment and dig-
nity to women raped and
infected with the HIV virus
during the country’s 1994 geno-
cide.
“We see about 100 patients
every day at this clinic,” said
Joseph Hakizimana, 29, the
organization’s country clinical
co-ordinator and one of its
founding employees. With three
clinics and two mobile units,
they serve almost 5,000, nearly
half of those receiving free,
life-saving, anti-retroviral med-
ication. “We can still do more,
especially in the rural areas
where women and men don’t
even know to get tested.”
Hakizimana is passionate
about community-driven action
in addressing HIV/AIDS in
Rwanda. He will be in Victoria
this week to speak about the
power of grassroots women’s
organizations in creating
access to care and treatment of
HIV/AIDS, a pandemic that
affects all of Africa.
“Because of a lack of doc- PHOTOS BY SARAH PETRESCU
tors, nurses, infrastructure and
the aid organizations who con-
centrate themselves in cities, Above: Friends Maria Bahizi, left,
many people are not being and Miriam Jean work on colour-
reached,” Hakizimana said. ful items for sale at the We-Actx
Hakizimana was a high clinic in Kigali. The work initia-
school student in Butare dur- tive is a project of the clinic that
ing the 1994 genocide, in which helps women dealing with HIV.
800,000 people were killed in
100 days, and 250,000 brutal
rapes occurred. The trauma Left: Joseph Hakizimana, the
and the aftermath moved him manager of the We-Actx clinic,
to study nursing at university has been working to help
and to volunteer to work with women with HIV since the Rwan-
his mother’s organization dan genocide in 1994. He will be
IMBABAZI, helping AIDS in Victoria April 23 to talk about
orphans and widows in the his work.
rural Cyangugu province, the
farthest from Kigali. KIGALI STORY
“I loved it. That was a huge
motivator for me,” said Hakiz- TOLD IN VICTORIA
imana. There are two opportunities on
His ensuing work with geno- Wednesday to hear Joseph
cide-survivor groups led him to Hakizimana’s talk, The Power of
become one of WE-ACTx’s first Women’s Grassroots Organizations in
employees in 2004. Creating Universal Access to Care and
The organization formed Treatment, about his work with the
after American journalist Kigali health clinic and HIV/AIDS in
Anne-Christine D’Adesky was Rwanda:
contacted by a group of Rwan- ■ at 10:30 a.m., in the David Strong
dan women who were raped
Building (Room C126) at the
and infected with HIV during
University of Victoria and
the genocide. They were dying
while the men who raped them ■ at 7:30 p.m., in Gibson Auditorium
were being treated in jail await- (Young 216) at Camosun College.
ing trial. Admission is by donation.
> See DIGNITY, Page D7

INSIDE MONITOR
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