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Honours for SURF Founder and Director, Mary Kayitesi Blewitt
London – 01st January 2008
SURF Founder and Director, Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours List. Mary’s award is in recognition of her work supporting survivors of the Rwandan genocide, in the UK and Rwanda, through the charity that she established ten years ago, Survivors Fund (SURF).
Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, a British Citizen of Rwandan origin, founded SURF at the behest of survivors after losing 50 family members during the genocide in 1994. Immediately after the genocide, she worked for eight months as a volunteer for the Ministry of Rehabilitation in Rwanda helping to bury the dead and to support the survivors, many of whom had lost everything – family and friends, home and health. In 1997 Mary formally established SURF to continue to aid, assist and support survivors.
The London based charity celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and is raising over £1 million a year to support projects for survivors, primarily in the fields of education, healthcare and shelter. Amongst its projects is a £4.25 million five-year programme funded by the Department for International Development to provide antiretroviral treatment in Rwanda for 2,500 women survivors raped and infected with HIV and AIDS during the genocide.
In 2004, Mary received a Woman of the Year Award by WOYLA, and was nominated by the Swiss Government for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 as part of its 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize Project.
On the honour, Mary said:
“I dedicate this honour to the memory of my brother. Though he was finally laid to rest with dignity earlier this year, I still feel his loss so deeply. It is for him in particular that I have worked so hard since 1994, and the fact that there are still so many thousands of bodies of victims still to be located – all someone’s friend or family too. SURF’s work is to ensure that all these victims of the genocide are given a decent burial, and that the survivors can finally look forward to a better future. Only to this end, is this honour important.”
She added:
“It would be amiss of me also not to acknowledge the dedication of my husband, Richard Blewitt, and children, Richard Jnr. and Christine, whose support along with that of all the British public and SURF’s donors, staff, board and trustees makes our work possible and has enabled us to achieve all that we have for survivors of the genocide, in Rwanda and UK.”
“I feel a responsibility to help the survivors. We need to tell these stories in the future. There are so many people who are traumatised and suffering. The only thing we can do is to talk about it so people do not feel alone anymore.”
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