ActionAid Burundi has been adapting Reflect to peace and reconciliation work since 1997, and now works with about 3,000 Hutus and Tutsis in 84 centres in Ruyigi province. Reflect has played an important role in rebuilding trust and social relationships through creating space for communication and joint learning.

Each Reflect circle has two facilitators – one Hutu and one Tutsi. They all have participants from both communities, creating ongoing opportunities for interaction and dialogue.

The circles have become places for people to meet, reconcile and forgive. This has made it possible to build trust as the key foundation of a sustainable peace locally, even where violence and instability continue elsewhere.

It has particularly helped reduce people’s vulnerability to rumour, which was identified as a powerful agent of the spread of violence in the past. Now, when there are rumours of rebel attacks, Hutus and Tutsis meet together to review the dangers, analyse the reliability of the information sources, and decide whether to stay or to flee temporarily – together.

Community newsletter
Although the focus of the Reflect programme in Ruyigi has been on peace and reconciliation, literacy has been an essential part of the programme. Literacy skills learned or strengthened in the circles enable participants to counteract rumour, misinformation and propaganda through mediums such as Ejo, a community peacebuilding newsletter.

Participants in Reflect circles write articles for Ejo giving personal accounts of their efforts to rebuild life after conflict, and the challenges they face. Ejo has built up a large readership, as the only publication in Burundi that routinely captures these grassroots voices. It now has a circulation of 40,000 in Ruyigi and neighbouring provinces and is read by everyone from politicians to the general public. There have also been a series of peace posters, which spread the message of reconciliation beyond the Reflect circles.