It's been 4 years that I have been a security guard at SAFECO. At the end of each month, SAFECO will pay me my salary which will help me meet my needs well. It is through my salary that I pay for my university studies, where I am studying Public Law, and even meet other needs that are useful to me.

 

Having the job at SAFECO gave me a lot of hope for a happy life because I had been a victim where I was taken hostage by the Mai-Mai, the local militias, for 7 months. In this period, my life was 99% death. I didn't have the hope of living on this earth. Thanks to god we were tortured but they didn't kill us, except my grandmother.  I was five years old when they held my family hostage.  They killed my grandmother because she was helping the community that they were targeting.  Finally after 7 months of being held in terrible conditions, we were released in exchange for 6 cows. 

 

That was in December of 1999. The amazing thing is that this situation, these small local wars, are still taken up in the same way as before. Even now in 2020, our SAFECO office in Itombwe has recently been badly damaged by the Mai-Mai. It is thanks to SAFECO that I am doing my university studies in this very year of 2020. I am now in L1 law where I have one year left to finish my license in public law. I will ask all natural and legal persons to financially support SAFECO to be able to reap even more benefits from these useful activities for our population without discrimination of all kinds.