Bonne Annee
Every year, the Czech branch of UNICEF has a campaign asking people to contribute to a collection for a specific country in the third world. This year, it is focusing on Rwanda where thousands of children have been left alone to take care of themselves and their siblings. Pavla Gomba was part of a UNICEF mission to Rwanda last month, where she travelled to very remote villages to talk to people about their daily lives and experiences. The most striking meeting was with Bonne Annee. His name translates as Happy New Year because he was born on New Year's Eve. During the genocide in 1994, however, Bonne Annee was forced to grow up quickly when he and his two younger sisters witnessed their parents' brutal murder. His mother was from a different ethnic group and was burned to death in her room by a neighbour. His father tried to protect her and was tortured. He died from his injuries. Although Pavla Gomba has seen a lot of suffering throughout the years working for UNICEF, the fourteen year old Bonne Annee left a deep impression on her:
"He had to work all day long as a porter in the market or cultivating the fields of his neighbours and still he was able to get only an equivalent of nine crowns per day and it was hardly enough to get enough food for him and his two sisters. We were invited to his home and it was very moving to see the room and the shoes and the outfit of his mother when she was murdered in the house because the children hadn't touched her things since she had died. But what was striking was that despite these very difficult circumstances, he was very proud of himself and he was a really brave young man, although he was only fourteen years old. So we had a small collection among ourselves and we were able to donate something like a thousand crowns and it was very moving to see the big smile on his face when we were leaving because he decided that now he can maybe buy two pigs and he can grow pigs and this way get some money for his small family. So, it's very sustainable. Then we decided that we want to raise more funds for children like himself because there are more than 60,000 families like Bonne Annee's."
