CAPOEIRA FOR PEACE PROJECT
Helping children twist and twirl from trauma to healing
Munyakazi was 14 years old when she was drugged and raped in Quartier Birere, a poor, overcrowded neighbourhood of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her neighbour had asked her to fetch water, she obliged and he thanked her with a bottle of soda. It had been spiked, she believes. A few months later, Munyakazi found she was pregnant. She had to drop out of school as motherhood demanded her attention. "I don’t remember what happened later in that day. I was raped, I got pregnant and now here is my baby. Soon she is going to be one-year-old," says Munyakazi, now 16. After giving birth, she remained at her parents’ house in Birere with her five siblings, depending on her mother to help her take care of the baby. Her daily life is an "ordinary one", she says. "I wake up, I help cleaning the house and give my daughter a bath. I wait for the hours to pass until the evening and for another day to come. Nothing special." But since Munyakazi began attending support sessions at Hea...
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