Reconciliation Villages Program
Managed by: Emmy Ntambara
King Charles of the United Kingdom visited reconciliation village of Mbyo.
Prison Fellowship Rwanda, since 2003 started the reconciliation village program to foster Peacebuilding and reconciliation. PFR runs 8 reconciliation villages across the country that accommodate 4,080 people from families of released Genocide perpetrators, Genocide survivors, new returnees, and vulnerable members of the communities.
In the context of practical reconciliation, those groups living in reconciliation villages (ex-prisoners and Genocide survivors) agreed to come and live together as a result of a long process of community dialogues on unity and reconciliation. This practical reconciliation approach for the target groups creates a favourable environment for discussing and sharing, which results in mutual understanding, trust, and daily cooperation in income-generating activities. The communities in this village have become family.
PFR reconciliation villages in Rwanda’s post-Genocide era serve as best practices at the national and international level of reconciliation in post-conflict societies. PFR reconciliation villages, compared to other existing villages, were primarily intended to provide an enabling environment for continued practical reconciliation, community reintegration, and the protection of the surrounding area, since in all of these villages, trees were planted while also offering shelter to the target groups. As years go on, Reconciliation Villages receive a great number of guests from all over the world, as it has in previous years.
Visitors Planting a tree
