Ever since she returned to Rwanda about 22 years ago, the story of Rwanda and Genocide related subjects that has had Hope Azeda, an artist and curator, on a constant search for the difference between being human and being a human being.
“I have never understood why certain things happen. Every time I read about Rwanda, or visit the memorial, I don’t get the answer as to what happens to a human for them to become a child killer or an adult that is hunting down a child- the humanness that walks out.
I always wonder why a human can choose to hurt another human yet there is enough space to live together. How do they erupt and just decide to cause pain and exist in this world without empathy?” she says.
Sadly, when Covid-19 broke out last year, more stories of inhumanity and injustices emerged. These included statistics about teenage girls being defiled, raped and impregnated.
But with two decades of experience in theatre, as the founder artistic director of Mashirika Creative and Performing Arts, Azeda is a firm believer in the power of art to heal and create safe spaces to have these conversations.
She founded Project Batete to help sexually abused teen girls between the age of 14-17 unlock their healing and potential through the power of art.
‘Batete’ is a Rwandan word that means ‘being shown affection’ and for the past four weeks the seven girls that are benefiting from the project have been on a healing journey, where artists, therapists and mentors meet with them to walk with them on every step of it.
“We are using different forms of art to make them comfortable with each other and open up. I look at bodies as our houses, and when they had just come, none of them wanted to open up to each other,” she says.
“The exercise that I take them through,” she further explains, “involves a lot of ripping in that chamber of pain. It all starts with a simple exercise of just sharing what their thorn is in life or what their rose is and what it means to them. The amount of tension and tears that goes on in this place is what we don’t have in normal spaces like home settings but ‘Scars of Soul’ creates that safe space for people to talk about things and feel safe.”
Scars of Soul, according to her, is her new methodology and it’s about performances, poetry and the collective power of working together.
Using different forms of art like clay moulding, performing arts, painting, music, poetry, shoe making, public speaking skills, the power of play, and entrepreneurial skills, Batete tries to bring back that sense of what love is and what being a child feels.
“If just being a child is hard to be then what kind of soul is that going to be? We are trying to call back that child that has been taken out by abuse or by the people they trusted to give them love but instead just ejected the child out of them.
Another thing is that we are also preparing these girls to be ready for the world in terms of learning other entrepreneurial skills. They are learning how to make shoes because I believe that a human being whose child has walked out will never be creative. For you to be creative you need to be playful but how can you ever play if you never played and how can you dare if you never dared? It’s a journey of construction and deconstruction and only kids can do that,” she says.
After weeks of counseling, mentorship and healing, the girls, through a podcast, recently shared their stories with the aim of helping other girls who may have had a similar dark past know that they are not alone.
“I truly believe that a wounded soul will live to inflict wounds if they don’t heal. Someone cannot give you love if they were not given love. A broken person cannot help a broken society to heal,” Azeda says. “We need to create a cohort that can be agents of change regardless of the pain that they go through. I’m proud that these Batete girls will be a spark of hope to other girls and that when they listen to the podcast many other girls will know that they are not alone.”
“The power of art in unlocking certain chambers of hearts of pain in human beings is beyond my understanding!”
The future of Project Batete
The project is a pilot program because the founder believes that the smaller you have a group to experiment with, the easier it is to evaluate them.
But with the remarkable impact it is having already, Azeda envisions the project having ripple effects.
“It’s a stone we have thrown in the sea and I keep seeing it grow. The pilot project will come to an end and we will grow to a thousand girls and beyond Rwanda. Seeing the impact it has had on these girls, I see it stretching beyond horizons.”