History: Just on the eve of the 2015 Burundi crisis, IPB was founded in 2014 by a group of young university students coming from different parts of the city. . The motivation behind were first that the political manipulations of the youth since the national independence and is continuing until today. Violence related to these manipulations put people under a heavy trauma which is mixed today with
fear of the political context starting by elections. Each identity group see the other as an enemy and looks for ways to protect itself by eliminating the other one and vise versa. The second motivation was the way university students were each time responding with strikes whenever a misunderstanding occurred between them and the academic leadership. Frequently this led to violence by the students and many time the leadership of the universities responded by closing campuses and sending students to their home for months at a time. From 1995 until 2015, a number of the public university spent twice the period ordinarily needed to get a degree. It has become difficult to hire someone for a job who has spent double the period to get a degree in comparison with the one who finished in the normal period. The rate of unemployment, particularly of youth, in Burundi was a third motivation. IPB then wishes to contribute to this context through (i) trauma healing, (ii) social cohesion and (iii) reinforcing economic resilience of youth both vulnerable ones and those finishing the university. As the 2015 crisis erupted with violence between youth and the national police, dialogues for peace coexistence were conducted and Peace Committees were implemented in all universities in Bujumbura. These programs contributed to oppositing group to meet together to lead them in a process to analyze the root causes of the conflict and look for common solutions. The IPB 2016 and 2017 annual report posted to its webpage show the impact of IPB’s work through some testimonies, from either university students, secondary school pupils, local leaders and community in general.
