Rwanda Peace Education Programme (RPEP) partners, local authorities and communities gathered yesterday, April 23rd to launch the peace building programme in Rwamagana, Eastern Province at Avega Centre d’Accueil.
Local leaders, including the Eastern Province Governor, Hon. Odette Uwamariya’s delegate, the Rwamagana District Mayor, Mr. Nehemie Uwimana gathered with other local authorities including the District Education Officer, some religious leaders, teachers involved in the training, IRDP Deputy DG, Ms. Immaculée Mukankubito, Radio la Benevolencija Head of Mission, Mr. Aimaible Twahirwa to inaugurate this first step of the programme in the Eastern Province.
After a presentation of the Mobile Exhibition entitled “Rebuilding Rwanda After Genocide” by Aegis Outreach Education Coordinator, the RPEP Manager, Ms. Anita Kayirangwa highlighted the importance of this programme that shapes “the forces that build the country and will give full meaning to the ‘never again’ commitment”. She said that the programme aimed at equipping the younger generations with sufficient intellectual tools to identify and prevent the repetition of situations that we still can observe in some parts of the World such as Central African Republic and South Sudan.
Jackie Ingabire, one of the teachers who benefits from the teachers’ training programme, shed light on the concrete skills that she learned from the programme, reminding the audience that: “Schools in Rwanda have not always taught children positive things”. She added that “the medicine for a healthy society and a better future is in the schools, in education”. She further thanked the local authorities for encouraging teachers to attend the training.
IRDP Deputy DG, Ms. Immaculée Mukankubito, talking for the RPEP partners, recalled that peace education is an area not many people understand: “People wonder what we really do. We focus on the human being, on the human attitudes and behaviours through dialogue and debates. Because words have the potential to save or kill, we try to build a society where words do not kill”. As a clarification of the critical thinking and empathy that the four partners involved in RPEP wish to develop, she took the examples of the righteous elderly women who had neither strength nor wealth but saved fellow citizens during the genocide. “This is the aim of the programme; developing the behaviours, such courage as that of those people during the genocide; this is actual resistance against genocide”.
Closing the launch event, Rwamagana District Mayor, Mr. Nehemie Uwimana reminded the audience that not so long ago, hate between people was institutionalized in Rwanda. “Now we need to develop positive values inherited from our history”. Peace, he added, is not an event but a process that requires the will to live in harmony with our neighbours and safeguard peace.
He pledged support for the programme, thanked partners and encouraged teachers and students who are going to be trained to take the message of peace to their community.
