Christian BASHIMBE
I have always wanted to be in agreement with myself and my identity, I consider
my name as the reference of my beliefs and personality. Christian is my first
name which reflects my belonging to Christianity and that makes me
comfortable when people call me Christian.
Murhula is my second name, it is from my mother's tongue, it just little bit
complicated to pronounce and understand for those who may hear it the first
time. Murhula has a power meaning and the reasons why I have been given this
name it because I was born in a peaceful condition without feeling pain, that
what my mum told me.
Murhula means Peace and it also means for me the
fact that I was born without pain. Everyone wants peace and I also like it.
My last name is our family name ‘BASHIMBE’ which means FOLLOW him and
that is all about Christian Murhula Bashimbe, a very long name with good
meaning.
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WHAT DO I LIKE
I like being part of conflict resolution among people because being involved in
solving a conflict process gives me a chance to learn more about people's
misunderstandings and make me grow as a person.
I also like to share the little I have from my experiences and being concerned
about the development of my community.
Soccer and running are my favourite sports.
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WHAT I HATE
I am against war because it the resultant of people misunderstandings in
different ways. Where there is war, we can not escape the presence of violence,
tortures, hunger, crime, injustice and conflicts.
My life in Congo was a long movie with different chain of scenes. Many bad
situations occurred which I would not wish the same things to happen to somebody
else, even to my son to come.
I could say the DR of Congo was God designed and blessed by nature. Formerly known
as the Belgium Congo until the independence in 1960 . Its population is estimated to 80
million compared to 25 million in Australia. The D.R Congo is located in central Africa
and borders ten others countries . It has five official languages and known as the second
largest country in Africa and eleventh largest one in the world with the Congo River
which is the deepest River in the world.
It is a big country with good mineral resources such as Gold, Diamonds, big forests,
rivers, lakes, and a large diversity of cultures and tribes. Also there are more than 200
languages spoken. But all of these beauty and blessings from heaven are now a source of
conflict: hunger, violence, and war, so that the country where I was born in 1994, in the
eastern region formed by both North and South kivu, is a dangerous place.
I was born within a family of ordinary parents and 9 siblings. My Father was a
mechanic, and my Mum was just a small business owner of her restaurant. This was our
life so being separated and fleeing our country of origin due to the insecurity we were in
pushed to start a new life here in Australia.
I did both primary and secondary school in my country and being awarded with the
Diploma in Social study.
My life in that area was like drawing Africans problems on to a small piece of paper.
Life was not easy. I met too many people and made several relationship with some
of them and I learned many things from their culture, country, languages, religion
to which the belong.
My mum, six other sibling and I were beginning our long hard journey without any
idea about the final destination, a very long way away. During our journey, I had
understood that safety was a precious gift that the world should give to refugee
people.
Arriving in Kenya was like finding ourselves in middle of a big forest without any
map on your hands. I really learned a lot from the friendships I made, because I
believed that what had happened to our family was so dangerously unique, but now
I understood that we had many things in common with the friends I made in the
refugee camp.
Now I have and am still in touch with friends from Somali, both south and north
Soudan, Ethiopia, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda and also from Congo and I have
learned how to say hello in their languages.
I could hear many different languages spoken in the refugee camp like; Arabic,
Somali, Kiswahili, Amharic, Oromo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, French, and English
including other dialects, and could distinguish between them.
Since I have been selected as the successful applicant of this Leadership
Program which is mentioned above .I am feeling that the more I attend to
each session of the formation the more I feel strong change within me.
For the second day of the Program I discovered that being a leader could
be a challenging step if we really don't know the context of it because it is
always work with the Values, Morals and Ethics of each community and
society base on the way of everyone perception.
I understood that Leadership usually comprises competing values and
some times people values and morals would be in conflict with the Ethics.
I feel that achieving this Leadership Program is like caring the whole world
in my hands. It makes me understand how much my community and the
world in general needs my voice and positive contribution to make it better
and makes me more concerning about bringing people together .
During the session activities I learned beneficially from my colleagues
stories about what they had experienced in the past. the most powerful
lesson was “ we are all the product of our own efforts that we made in our
background life” I can conclude that sometimes someone’s story can teach
better than a teacher.
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MY VISION AND MY PASSION ARE ALL FOR ME
I always dreamt to be part of and work in the humanitarian field supporting others. I
have a big vision of creating or participating in a humanitarian organisation for helping
people in need or to give them hope for a better future.
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MY MOTTO
“Intelligence’s cultivation and wisdom acquisition” for me it means the more I learn from
others, the better and wiser I become.