Help a Child in Burundi

Help a Child entered Burundi in 2009 to support communities in improving child wellbeing. The first Child-Centered Community Development projects started in 2013. Four years later, the first Help a Child office in Bujumbura was opened. Throughout the years, Help a Child gained visibility and recognition as a key player in both the development and the emergency relief sector. The ‘Building Bridges in Burundi (BBB)‘ program, implemented under the ‘Addressing Root Causes (ARC)’ fund of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gained momentum to expand the work for children, families, and communities in the fragile Burundian society. The results of BBB are encouraging and boost our ambition to empower and restore vulnerable communities, with a focus on youth and employment in Burundi. This is closely linked to our ambition to reinforce top-down accountability through local and good governance.

In November 2021, Help a Child Burundi supported two refugee camps and three returnees’ transit centers in Burundi. This led to new partnerships with UNHCR and WFP to support refugees and returnees’ families including unaccompanied children. Together with UNHCR and WFP, Help a Child is ensuring the provision of food items and Non-Food items respectively to Refugees and Returnees as well as cash-based interventions to unaccompanied children, ensuring secure and proper orientation of the usage. It is inspiring to bring together expertise from both development and relief programs to improve programming on both sides and bring them closer together.

It all started with a letter…
While Help a Child started working in 2009 in Burundi, the history of Help a Child international goes back longer. Want to read more about Help a Child international and its origin?