Serena Renner
Esther Uwimana was two years old when her family fled from Burundi. They sought refuge after one of their children was killed during the genocide. When war broke out in the DRC, they packed up again, this time leaving for Tanzania, then again to Malawi where Esther lived in the Dzaleka refugee camp for 11 years.
At 21, Uwimana left her family and boarded a plane to Canada. “After a 29-hour journey, my whole world changed,” she said.
“I’ve been called a refugee my whole life,” Uwimana said. “But right now, I have a place that I call home. Being in Canada, I can move freely. My voice can be heard when before I didn’t have a way to express my voice because of fear.”
She will be casting the first ballot of her life next week. Along with climate change and immigration, she feels strongly about Indigenous rights.
“I feel like the Indigenous communities are being left out,” Uwimana said. “I’m grateful that those people were able to welcome me and allow me to live on this land, but we should give back to them. We should support them.”
(Read the full story, published on October 16 2019, on TheThunderbird.ca.)
