Why Burundi?

Why Burundi?

Burundi: Beautiful, Broken, Precious, Overlooked, Hospitable, Hopeful, United, Starving, Hardworking, Healing, Resilient

Burundi is a beautiful and well-resourced nation, filled with bold, passionate people. Although forgotten by much of the world, we are proud to be working alongside the best local leaders of passion, integrity and gifting for the transformation of the nation; bottom-up and top-down!

Burundi is bordered by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Rwanda. Much of its Western border is the world’s second-largest freshwater lake, Lake Tanganyika.

Ethnic groups in Burundi include the Hutus, Tutsis and Twa (Batwa or pygmies). The pygmies are former forest dwellers who have been displaced from their hunting ground. They often still live in mud huts with no sanitation.

The country has suffered terrible genocides rooted in tribal tensions, like Rwanda but far less publicised.

Over 300,000 people died in the ethnic conflict between 1993-2005.

In the years following the election of 2015, political unrest suffocated the economy, which has not yet recovered. Over 400,000 fled the country and over 100,000 were internally displaced. Some have since returned but many are still refugees in other countries including Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

Burundi: Beautiful, Broken, Precious, Overlooked, Hospitable, Hopeful, United, Starving, Hardworking, Healing, Resilient

Stats

Economy

The prime economy is agricultural but the nation does not have much land for the size of population. The main exports are tea, coffee and bananas. Burundi has the lowest GNI per capita in the world and the lowest GDP per capita in the world.

Needs