Avenue Muyinga, N° 30, City Quartier INSS, 6877 Bujumbura, Burundi
Théoneste Manirambona
Country Program Director
Théoneste received a degree in Law from the University of Burundi in 2016. He started his current position as the country program director in 2022, but he has worked at Burundi Bridges to Justice (BBJ) for many years. After serving for six months as a volunteer lawyer, in 2017, he became a project coordinator at BBJ. Before joining BBJ, he interned at Bujumbura High Court in the department of the Criminal Clerk and worked for the technology firm, NFT-Consult, in the contracts division. He also served as a legal researcher in the Juvenile Section of the Burundi National Police office, the Bujumbura office of the Prosecutor, and the High Court of Bujumbura. As an independent consultant, he performed project evaluations for international organisations such as the U.N. Development Program and FORDEV (Foundation for Capacity Building and Development).
In 2016, Théoneste authored the essay – “Sexual exploitation of minors in the Burundi criminal code” – at the University of Burundi, and performed research for Centre Seruka, an NGO which provides comprehensive care (medical, legal, judicial, and psychosocial) for survivors of sexual violence. In this role, he gained significant knowledge in the legal fields of sexual and gender-based violence, juvenile justice and children’s rights.
Janvier Ncamatwi
Legal Fellow
Father of four children, Janvier Ncamatwi holds a Master in Human Rights and Pacific Conflict Resolution. He has been a lawyer at the Burundi Bar Association since 2004. Prior to joining the Bar, Janvier Ncamatwi worked in the Burundian army, first as a major in the military and then as a military court judge. He has thus a thorough understanding of the Burundian criminal justice system, including the civil and military jurisdictions.
Passionate about human rights, Janvier cooperates with several other NGOs, including ASF, Ligue Iteka and the Christian Association Against Torture (ACAT). In 2006, he spontaneously assisted twenty juvenile detainees of Muyinga prison with the result that all of them were either released or convicted to lower sentences.
Jean-Claude Barakamfitiye
IBJ African Regional Juvenile Justice & Youth Coordinator
Jean-Claude Barakamfitiyeis a lawyer, trainer, mentor and consultant. He has been an active member of the Bujumbura Bar Association since 2013. He also holds a Masters’ Degree in Intellectual Property (MIP) and is a graduate of the Peace-Building and Conflict Transformation Program at the School for International Training, a program of the World Learning which is in Brattleboro (Vermont).
In February 2022, Jean-Claude was appointed to be the IBJ African Regional Juvenile Justice & Youth Coordinator. In this capacity, he focuses on promoting children’s rights and advocating for justice systems which protect the rights of the child not only in Burundi and the Great Lakes Region, but also across Africa. Previously, he served as Program Manager for IBJ’s affiliate office – Burundi Bridges to Justice (BBJ) – during which time he succeeded in increasing access to justice for Burundi citizens. He also oversaw BBJ’s Defender Resource Center in Bujumbura, a hub for volunteer lawyers providing vulnerable detainees citizens with early access to justice.
Jean-Claude’s many accomplishments include: 2008 laureate of the JANUSZ KORCZAK award for the rights of the child; Alumnus of the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship on Democracy and Development with Stanford University; and 2021-2022 Global Child Law Fellow with the Child Law International Alliance.
Astère Muyango
Senior Advisor
Astère brings more than 5 years of experience in legal clinical aid and project management to IBJ. His most formative experience was as Assistant Coordinator of the Clinical Legal Aid Project of the International South-African based non-governmental organization ACCORD (African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes), where he delivered capacity-building to grassroots organizations, provided legal counsel to indigents and managed partnerships with other relevant legal aid providers in the country.
Astère now provides the on-the-ground leadership to IBJ’s Burundi program. He contributes to refine the program’s strategic goals, coordinates the main activities of the program and cements strong working relationships with the local partners. He holds a Bachelor of Law from the Law University of Burundi.
Ange-Marie-Confidence Kaneza
Accounting and Finance Administration
Ange-Marie-Confidence is
a skilled administrator and finance professional with over four years of experience in the civil society sector. She joined
Burundi Bridges to Justice (BBJ) in November 2022, leveraging her expertise in budgetary management, activity monitoring, and partner relations.
Previously, she honed her skills at a gender-focused
NGO, where she was responsible for workshop
coordination, financial reporting (including
budgets, administrative accounts, and balance
sheets), and organizational activity monitoring. At BBJ, she applies this rigorous approach to ensure project activities run on schedule and in full compliance with administrative and financial rules.
Fortunate Niyonkuru
Legal Fellow
With a law degree from Université Sagesse d’Afrique, Mrs Fortunate joined International Bridges to Justice in 2014 as a Volunteer. She is serving as lawyer with her long experience at the field of human rights defense generally and particularly in providing legal assistance to vulnerable people in conflict with law. She has been very active to provide legal assistance to vulnerable detainees.
From 2015, she tirelessly worked to defend cases of vulnerable detainees. One of the most difficult cases she worked on involved 19 young people accused of participation into an insurrection, endangering internal security of the State and carrying weapons without license. These people had been sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment by the first judge. Fortunate helped the young people to appeal and more recently she got their sentence reduced to 5 years by MUHA Court of Appeal. In addition, previously in 2019, breastfeeding woman with a 5 months old little girl, while BBJ Manager was not fine with her taking such a risk to travel with the baby to more than 130 km, she insisted to be among a legal team attending a whole week court session. She managed to travel to NGOZI with her little girl and a babysitter.
She had, besides, rooted her experience in fighting sexual based violences and rising
fundamental rights awareness among ordinary citizens. Before joining Burundi team, she has interacted with non-governmental organisations like APRODH, Human Rights officer. She is, in fact, an active member of Burundi Bar Association, of African Youth in Action Organisations Network and Rassemblement des Jeunes pour le Développement et la lutte contre le Sida (RAJEDS).
Fidès Nibasumba
Legal Fellow
Fides Nibasumba, is master’s degree holder in intellectual property, she is a lawyer by profession registered at Burundi Bar association.
She gets involved as human right defender offering legal assistance on behalf of poor and vulnerable people since 2015 when she started volunteering at Burundi bridges to justice and she is now working as legal fellow. Project manager in charge of implementing the AA2J project which is offering legal assistance to vulnerable women who cannot afford to pay lawyer fees in Burundi and mentoring in the same program the lawyer’s chapter in Tanzania and Zambia.
Aline Nijimbere
Legal Fellow
Married with three children, Aline Nijimbere is a lawyer. She has joined the Burundi Bar Association in June 2000. During her ten years experience as a legal practitioner, she has defended many indigent arrestees, especially individuals involved in civil war crimes for organizations such as the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Burundi, Lawyers without Borders and local human rights organizations like APRODH and Ligue Iteka.
Strong of her passion for the promotion of women and children’s rights, she has taken many cases of vulnerable women and juvenile detainees and members of ethnic minorities for the High Commissioner for Refugees via a local association, the Burundian Lawyer Women”s Association of which she is an active member. Aline holds a Master degree in Human Rights and Pacific Resolution of Conflicts. She has conducted research and trainings on women and children’s rights.
Josiane Nshimirimana
Programme Assistant
Josiane is a legal professional and dedicated human rights
advocate with a background in commercial law. She holds a Bachelor of Law from the University of Burundi and a Master’s in Commercial Law from Kampala International University.
Her commitment to human rights was solidified during
an academic internship at Mpimba Central Prison.
She further developed her expertise through her work with Burundi Bridges to Justice (BBJ), where she progressed from volunteer to Project Coordinator. In this role, she leads different initiatives including the “Preventing Torture and Promoting Due Process Rights” projects, managing its execution, budget, and strategic goals in collaboration with a team of staff and lawyers.
Previously, she honed her strategic and communication skills as a Sales and Negotiation Officer at LACEL Burundi S.A.
Innocent Kana
Legal Fellow
Young father of two, Innocent KANA graduated in Law from the University of Lac Tanganyika and is a young lawyer very passionate of human rights defense. He has been a volunteer at IBJ and he has brought a great support and now he collaborates with IBJ Burundi branch as Legal Fellow. His internship at IBJ resulted into joining the Burundi Bar Association on February 17th 2017.
As a legal practitioner, he is working on detainees with a special focus on arbitrary detention and has already taken on hundreds of the more vulnerable cases. He is
still committed to fighting against the violations of the legal safeguards of detainees.
Goreth Bizimana
Legal Fellow
Goreth is a legal fellow collaborating with IBJ Burundi branch in regards with providing legal assistance to the most vulnerable arrestees in
general with a focus to women and children in conflict with law. She‘s passionate in monitoring the respect of legal safeguards of the arrestees at each step of criminal procedure, the
defense of the Human Rights generally and for the most vulnerable particularly.
She brought both the skills gained from her university studies in law as bachelor, her speciality in International Public Law and her experience at Schooling responsible and Secretary of Academic Direction at High Institute of Management of Bujumbura.