The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative is hosting the Catena Lecture in Medicine, Faith, and Service, with a reception to follow on the terrace at Duke Divinity School. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Launched in 2019, the Catena lectureship invites speakers whose work displays innovative scholarship, service, and institution-building at the intersection of theology, medicine, and culture.

Catena Lecture Speaker

This year's speaker is Marguerite "Maggie" Barankitse, humanitarian activist, genocide survivor, political refugee, and founder of Maison Shalom International in Rwanda, which which she created to “be a house of peace and love, where the life of every human being and his dignity would be respected.” The title of the lecture is “For Human Dignity, I Will Not Keep Silent.”

Barankitse was born at Nyamutobo in 1957 in Ruyigi province, East-Burundi. She was a teacher at a local secondary school and worked as a secretary for the Catholic bishop in Ruyigi.

Barankitse put her dream of ethnic harmony into practice by adopting seven children: four Hutus and three Tutsis. However, violence escalated between the two tribes following the assassination of the first democratically-elected president of Burundi. On October 23, 1993, a group of armed Tutsis descended on Ruyigi to kill the Hutu families who were hiding in the Bishop’s manor. Barankitse managed to hide many of the children but was caught by the fighters, who beat her, humiliated her, and forced her to watch the killing of 72 Hutus. Still, she refused to tell them where the children were hidden. Ultimately, she was spared only because of her Tutsi heritage.

After the ordeal, Barankitse gathered her adopted children and the surviving orphans and hid them in a nearby school. As more children sought shelter with her, she decided to create a small non-governmental organization: Maison Shalom, the House of Peace. Her house was open to children of all ethnic origins: Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa. She calls them “My Hutsitwa children,” and they call her "Oma" (or grandmother in German). In the following years, Maison Shalom in Ruyigi was one of the few places in Burundi where Hutus and Tutsis cohabited in harmony.

Since the events of 1993, over 20,000 children and youth have benefited from Maison Shalom. Before the current crisis in Burundi, the organization employed more than 270 people, including nurses, psychologists, and educators who implemented special projects for the children.

In April 2015, Barankitse spoke out against the third term of President Pierre Nkurunziza and joined the youth demonstrations denouncing him. As a result, she was obliged to hide for a month in an embassy in Bujumbura. Eventually, she had to flee because the government had her name on a death list. 

Barankitse found herself a refugee. Yet, her refugee status did not stop her devotion to alleviating suffering. Now still at work, she has opened a branch of Maison Shalom in Rwanda.