Stories of Advocacy: Peer Support in Rwanda

by Martha Heinemann Bixby · 2009-06-25 20:59:00 UTC
Topics:

Michelle often posts powerful stories of survival - amazing accounts of the horrors genocide survivors have seen and how they survived those horrors.

In that tradition (but with a twist), I'd like to highlight the story of Albert Nzamukwereka.  He says,

I am not myself a survivor, but I have a big family... members of my family have been killed in the genocide.  In 1994 I came back from where I was living as a refugee in the DRC, and I found that the the whole country has been decimated.

Albert is now the Country Program Coordinator for Survivor Corps Rwanda, and is interviewed in this video by Lisa Rogoff, an Advocacy Project fellow with Survivor Corps in Rwanda this summer.

Albert also recently began a blog, Ibyiza Birimbere Rwanda, starting off with a article on the problems of teaching history in Rwanda:

Rwanda is not an exceptional case.  The majority of post-conflict countries have had to rewrite textbooks and organise national debates to correct mistakes of the past or to discuss controversial issues. This is an experience of countries like Germany France, and Poland after the world wars, and recently in South Africa following apartheid.

I encourage you to follow the ongoing advocacy story that is the work of Albert and Survivor Corps Rwanda.

Martha Heinemann Bixby
PREVIOUS STORY:
Photo Essay from Congo: Portraits of Insecurity
NEXT STORY:
Campaign about Apple Factories in China Gains Wide and Diverse Support

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.