Ministry and Training Center
Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Services (THARS)
EMI Project 5423
February 1-13, 2007
NOV 2, 2007 Photo UPDATE:
A gathering at the amphitheatre
THARS Facilitator
Student Cottage construction pic1
Student Cottage construction pic2
THARS Brochure
SEPT 14, 2007 UPDATE:
The final design package of the training center was published on July 20, 2007. The scope of the design included:
Listening Building: 200 m2, 1-story building for counseling individuals with 7 'listening' rooms, 1 bedroom and toilet. (Arch, Structural and Electrical drawings).
Student Cottage: 360 m2, 1-story duplex - each side can hold 16 trainees in 4 bedrooms with bathrooms, kitchen, dining area and veranda. Also has rear staff area for cooking, bedroom and private veranda. (Arch, Structural and Electrical drawings).
Director's Home: 190 m2, 1-story house 3 bedrooms, living, dining, kitchen and cooking areas. (Arch, Structural and Electrical drawings). Amphitheater: 160m2 outdoor amphitheater with seating for 300 people (Arch & Elec).
Campus Masterplan: 5 acre site and sloping hillside. In phase I to have 100 counseling students, including 3 student cottages, trainer cottage, listening room building, and director's home. (site masterplan, water distribution, waste-water collection and disposal, and electrical distribution drawings).
Attached are images of some of the design work, and the team. For a power point of the designs prepare in country, please go to: (insert link to in country presentation I emailed you yesterday to post on the volunteer resources page).
Listening Building Perspective
Listening Building Floor Plan
Cottage Perspective
Director's Home Perspective
Amphitheater Ring
Color Master Plan
Team Photo
Construction of the Amphitheater was begun in April 2007. Fundraising for the listening room building, student cottages and director's home is underway. If you would like to fund any of these, please contact:
Original Project Scope
For the last 40 years, Burundi and the African Great Lakes Region have experienced civil war, refugee crises, and genocidal episodes. The long term vision of THARS is to train people to provide healing to the peoples of the Central African Region. The wars in Burundi and in the entire region have made the poor the most vulnerable.
The new center will facilitate a healing process to marginalized people; the training programs will be targeted to those who show a passion for empowering the poor and those who are suffering. The “peacemaking” THARS advocates is not temporal, but a lasting one, through the healing and reconciliation work of Christ, the Prince of Peace. The inner healing that the community needs is made a reality by the Wounded Healer because “through His stripes we are healed.”(Isaiah 53:5) The stories of THARS’ clients are a testament to the human spirit and to this miraculous work of God (see www.thars.org)
Construction just began August 4th, 2006 on a simple, new, 1200 SF trauma healing training center in Gitega. Gitega is central to Burundi and the African Great Lakes Region, allowing it to be a strategic place for continued development and influence in the surrounding countries. The eMi team will join the development process that has just barely begun and create a master plan that will include all other functions for the training center, including classrooms, dormitories, kitchen and dining facilities, administrative space, staff housing, a chapel, and outdoor play fields.
Will you be a part of bringing healing to a region of the world that so desperately needs it? eMi is privileged to come along side an organization that is devoted to restoring hope to the hopeless and life to those who only have known pain and death.
Project Team
Craig Hoffman – EMI Staff – Team Leader / Structural engineer
Eliah Kim – EMI Intern – Structural engineer
Scott Brink – Civil Engineer
Erik Annis – Senior Architect
Dale Kanen – Surveyor and Fisheries expert
Susan Kanen – Water Quality Analyst
Erica Moore – Junior Architect
