Agnes Nindorera

Biography

Nindorera Agnes was born and raised in Burundi, a small eastern African country which suffered from violent political conflicts since 1965 to today. She studied Journalism first in Burundi(1983-1985), graduated in 1986 and served as Press Attachée at the National Assembly. The later was suspended following the 1987 military coup and Nindorera lost her job. She decided to go back to school and studied Journalism and Communication in Belgium at Free university of Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles) from 1987 to 1990. She took this opportunity to research “The ethnic dimension of the politics of Burundi” and published her memoire on this issue. From then, Nindorera was convinced that politics were critical to violence, ethnic cleansing and massive Human Rights Violations. Back home, she served as journalist Reporter and Chief of Column at the daily “Renouveau”. Meanwhile Burundi had entered into a political and economic liberalization process which allowed freedoms including for the press and media diversity. Nindorera’s work and professionalism were early recognized and she went on numerous US International Visitor Programs. The first one was attended just after the 1992 elections that brought into office a civilian elected President. During this trip Nindorera had the opportunity to visit American media including VOA which hired her as reporter and representative in Burundi. She was at the same time granted the Honorary Citizenship of Oklahoma. As Burundi’s political crisis turned into a civil war in October 1994, Nindorera was detached from le Renouveau to help the United Nations Secretary General Representative in Burundi’s team to develop a Campaign for Peace. It is at time that she was recommended, along with two other journalists, to the representative of Search for Common Ground in Burundi and thus, she became the only woman Journalist member of the team to start SFCG’s media project “Studio Ijambo”.