Journalist tells of her desire to help women and youth of democratic republic of congo
by Latoya Burnham
“Sometimes I think that it’s not enough to be a simple journalist. Maybe I have to do more, to be more to help everybody — women and youth.”
This statement from 26-year-old Pascaline Zamuda is one that touches me deeply.
This is a story that took me almost two years to tell — one, because Pascaline moves around so much and our time zones are always so different it is hard to link up, and two, because there are some I fear who will ask, but what does the Democratic Republic of Congo have to do with Barbados? The answer is, nothing; yet everything, in this globalised environment in which we now live.
At 26 years the average Bajan girl is probably caught up with work, dating, liming, partying on the weekends, if not raising young children. For Pascaline, every day is achallenge — sometimes just a challenge to stay alive and foremost for her, to help those trying to survive in an often embattled country. I met Pascaline for the first time online while preparing for a near two-month journalism
fellowship at the United Nations. We met face to face in September 2011 when we were both a part of the programme and then we spent a short time as roommates in Washington during that same fellowship.
Pascaline is a radio producer/journalist/activist with the South Kivu Women Medias Association. Her native tongue is Swahili and she calls me “dada” or “sister”. She is more fluent in French than English. I speak English, no Swahili and my French is hardly passable, yet we were able to chat well into the nights in the US and I got to like this quiet, somewhat shy African — even more when she tackled some UN officials with the
hard questions about what was happening in her country and what this key international organisation would do about it. Born on October 26, 1987, Pascaline became a reporter at 15. “It’s was in 2003, I was 15 years old. The country came from two big armed conflicts — the first one in 1996 and the second 1998. My region, the eastern part of the country was strongly and more affected by those conflicts and rebellion, cause it’s like a gate where solders from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and others which are included and provocated those wars.”
When these soldiers, politicians and international agencies find common negotiating ground, she said then there is “relative calm”, but it is still a region considered for humanitarian and other assistance by the international community.
At 26 years the average Bajan girl is probably caught up with work, dating, liming, partying on the weekends, if not raising young children. For Pascaline, every day is achallenge — sometimes just a challenge to stay alive and foremost for her, to help those trying to survive in an often embattled country. I met Pascaline for the first time online while preparing for a near two-month journalismfellowship at the United Nations. We met face to face in September 2011 when we were both a part of the programme and then we spent a short time as roommates in Washington during that same fellowship.
Pascaline is a radio producer/journalist/activist with the South Kivu Women Medias Association. Her native tongue is Swahili and she calls me “dada” or “sister”. She is more fluent in French than English. I speak English, no Swahili and my French is hardly passable, yet we were able to chat well into the nights in the US and I got to like this quiet, somewhat shy African — even more when she tackled some UN officials with the
hard questions about what was happening in her country and what this key international organisation would do about it. Born on October 26, 1987, Pascaline became a reporter at 15. “It’s was in 2003, I was 15 years old. The country came from two big armed conflicts — the first one in 1996 and the second 1998. My region, the eastern part of the country was strongly and more affected by those conflicts and rebellion, cause it’s like a gate where solders from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and others which are included and provocated those wars.”
An NGO called Search for Common Ground started a programme called Giving Voice to Congolese Children, in an attempt to denounce the human rights violations of children during conflict. They used the media to get children to open up about what was happening, and Pascaline was recruited through her school and trained as a reporter. She was also further educated about human rights and children’s rights.
“I began going up country; far from the city, in others provinces where children [were] enrolled in armed groups, raped, ill-treated and those whose parents were killed in the wars; others who are abandoned, ect. I made a lot of reports. I become as a ambassador of children rights.”
