Nkusi Benjamin was a father of one daughter and a student when the 1994 Rwandan genocide happened in Rwanda. He was living on campus in his school. His wife was pregnant with the second daughter. Days after the beginning of the genocide, his second daughter was born. To get to the hospital to deliver the baby was hard with many road blocks, military deployed here and there, militia killing in the villages. Soon after the birth of our second born, our village was raided. One night, shootings were heard everywhere in our neighborhood. We had to stop our dinner and my wife was going to the bedroom when bullets came through the window of our bedroom. My wife fell on the bed and the baby on the other side of the bed. I was hiding in the storeroom with our first born and I thought my wife shot dead. When the shootings stopped, I found her in deep sleep with the baby at her side. I thought she was dead, but she was alive and unable to cope with the raid.

It was difficult to sleep after that. I carried that trauma for years and any trigger can make it surface again. Similar feelings came in mind with the event of COVID 19. When the first lock down was declared, with lost jobs and business, people developing depression with suicidal spirit, my first flash back to trauma came in. I developed symptoms of COVID 19. I felt depressed. I isolated myself. But all my tests were negative fortunately, even though I was feeling pain all over my body. Depression continued to develop. I decided to get busy with research on COVID 19 along with depression and some responses to them. I developed and implemented two proposals – responses to COVID 19.

In my research I was relieved to see some people who were affected directly and indirectly with COVID 19 being cared for and finding hope and relief. I want to keep working to find a more sustainable solution to those who were left helpless, vulnerable, widows or orphans by COVID 19. Students who dropped out of school and went back to their jobless parents are part of my concern. Teenagers who found themselves with unwanted pregnancies and now are teen mothers and are calling for advocacy, relief and counseling.

I am working to develop projects and programs. I am searching for some sustainable solutions to all the community problems and concerns: those who were there and are aggravated by COVID 19; those that are new with the persistent consequences of COVID 19. Working hard helps me to forget my pain and suffering of the days past.