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Our Work: Rwanda: Body Text 2

USC Shoah Foundation’s ongoing projects engage educators and students from middle school to college as well as the broader Rwandan community:

  • IWitness in Rwanda

    • “This program went beyond my expectations. This new and improved way of teaching about the genocide against Tutsi just blew my mind.” Rwandan teacher and participant in the first training session.
    • In this collaborative program, secondary school teachers in Rwanda learn how to use IWitness and then pilot it in their classrooms to teach their students about genocide. Working with more than 1,300 Holocaust and Rwandan testimonies, instructors may create a variety of curricula complete with testimony clips and other contextualizing information in the IWitness website. The first in-classroom pilots of IWitness in Rwanda are currently underway in schools around Kigali. For more information on IWitness please visit: http://sfi.usc.edu/teach_and_learn/iwitness.

  • Rwanda Peace Education Program

    • USC Shoah Foundation is lending its expertise in collecting testimony, archive-building, and teaching about genocide to help develop peace education in Rwanda. In addition to the IWitness in Rwanda initiative, it is working with Aegis Trust Rwanda staff to grow Rwanda’s own testimony archive. Partners include: Aegis Trust Rwanda, The Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace, Radio La Benevolencija and USC Shoah Foundation. Supported by the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency in Rwanda.

  • Teaching: “Conflict Resolution and Peace Research”

    • USC undergraduates who are dedicated to learning about genocide and its aftermath take this 4-unit course each summer. After spending two weeks on the USC campus studying the history, genocide, aftermath and the continued development of modern Rwanda, students spend three weeks on the ground in Rwanda conducting research and meeting with leaders from governmental and non-governmental organizations. This course is part of the Problems Without Passports course offerings at USC.

  • Kwibuka 20

    • USC Shoah Foundation executive director Stephen Smith is the executive producer of Kwibuka20, a nationwide series of events leading up to the 20th anniversary commemoration of Rwanda’s 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsis.