USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education has added a collection of testimonies of survivors and rescuers from the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide to its Visual History Archive. This marks the first integration of testimonies outside of Holocaust survivors and witnesses into the Visual History Archive.
rwanda, collection, expansion, aegis, kigali genocide memorial, kgm, Freddy Mutanguha, Stephen Smith / Friday, April 19, 2013
Over 70 new testimonies have been added to IWitness to increase the scope of experiences students can engage with. IWitness now features 1,321 video testimonies from the Visual History Archive that allows teachers and their students to search, watch, and learn directly from the eyewitness to history. IWitness activities allow students to construct multimedia projects that integrate testimony clips together with footage from other sources, as well as photographs and maps, voiceover audio, music and text.
iwitness, rwanda, kigali, aegis / Thursday, May 16, 2013
Dr. Dan Leshem and Dr. Amy Carnes of USC Shoah Foundation will be leading a course to Rwanda this summer that will allow USC students to study post-genocide reconstruction.  The course, Rebuilding Rwanda: Memory, Testimony, and Living Together after Genocide, was developed in conjunction with Dr.
rwanda, Dan Leshem, amy carnes, tutsi, pwp, problems without passports / Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The students came to the Institute to search for and extract 10 video clips to use for a project in IWitness, the Institute’s award-winning educational website. Explore IWitness
iwitness, rwanda, education / Friday, May 10, 2013
The USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education is now accepting applications for a summer course that will allow USC students to study post-genocide conflict resolution in Rwanda. "Rebuilding Rwanda:  Memory, Testimony, and Living Together after Genocide" (IR-318, Conflict Resolution and Peace Research) will provide a practicum for students to consider the complex task that societies face in the aftermath of genocide.
rwanda, problems without passports, Dan Leshem, amy carnes / Thursday, March 7, 2013
Tenth grade students at Windward School in Mar Vista, California have been piloting a new IWitness activity titled What Can One Voice Tell Us About a Genocide as part of their Global Studies class.
education, iwitness, kori street, karen jungblut, kim simon, rwanda, tutsi / Monday, June 3, 2013
The Swedish Embassy today announced funding for an ambitious new Rwanda-wide peace-building program.  The Rwanda Peace Education Programme is designed to counter behavioral risk factors for genocide by promoting social cohesion, pluralism, personal responsibility, empathy, critical thinking and action to build a more peaceful society.
sida, aegis, James Smith, rwanda, sweden / Monday, June 17, 2013
The inaugural meeting of the Rwandan Peace Education Program brought together survivors of the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide and the Holocaust, along with other activists from around the world.
rwanda, Renee Firestone, collections / Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Teachers from all over Hungary gathered in Budapest this month for the six-day introductory seminar to the USC Shoah Foundation’s 2013 Teaching with Testimony for the 21st Century program. But there was one educator among them who didn’t just travel across the country – he came from the other side of the world.
Appolon Gahongayire, Andrea Szőnyi, rwanda, hungary, workshop, education, training, TWT, kgmc, budapest / Friday, July 19, 2013
By Nora Snyder
pwp, problems without passports, rwanda / Wednesday, July 24, 2013
USC Shoah Foundation’s director of research and documentation, Karen Jungb
rwanda, education, kori street, karen jungblut, aegis / Friday, August 16, 2013
Ten Rwandan testimonies from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive are the latest additions to IWitness, USC Shoah Foundation’s interactive educational website.
iwitness, rwanda, testimony, visual history archive / Thursday, September 5, 2013
Two senior staff members of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute have traveled to South Africa and Rwanda to meet with partners and explore new relationships and opportunities for collaborative initiatives.
kim simon, karen jungblut, rwanda / Thursday, March 29, 2012
When I tell my fellow USC students that I’m the president of an organization called SFISA, it’s usually safe to assume that 90% of them have no idea what it is. It’s not the most elegant of acronyms and we acknowledge this. Our club’s full name – the Shoah Foundation Institute Student Association – is equally as unwieldy but at least it’s descriptive, and that’s something, right? But even if they’ve heard of our less than stellar name, they still might not know who we are or what we do. So let me take this moment to enlighten you.
rwanda, op-eds / Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Today marks the beginning of Kwibuka20, Rwanda’s three-month commemoration of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi Genocide.
rwanda, rwandan survivor, Stephen Smith, kwibuka / Monday, January 6, 2014
USC Shoah Foundation’s research department will host seven new Holocaust indexers and three Aegis Trust Rwanda staff members this month for a training session on indexing Holocaust and Rwandan testimonies.
indexing, kigali genocide memorial, rwanda, rpep, JFCS, holocaust / Thursday, January 9, 2014
Gitow will consult on a variety of topics and initiate collaborations between the Shoah Foundation and the UN.
united nations, testimony, rwanda, cambodia, visiting scholar / Thursday, January 16, 2014
The recent New York Times article, The Shroud over Rwanda's Nightmare (January 9, 2014), had me perplexed at first. Michael Dobbs' enquiry centers on the character of Jean-Pierre, the informant who tipped off United Nations head of mission General Romeo Dallaire about preparations for widespread killing of civilians in Rwanda 1994 as evidenced by the training of the Interhamwe militia, the presence of arms caches and the purchase of large numbers of machetes.
rwanda, GAM, op-eds / Monday, January 27, 2014
The first in-classroom pilot of IWitness in Rwanda will take place next week at Kagarama Secondary School in Kigali.
iwitness, rwanda, kigali, kigali genocide memorial / Thursday, February 6, 2014
President Paul Kagame visited USC Shoah Foundation on Wednesday to learn more about the Institute’s work linking testimony, technology and education.
rwanda, president, paul kagame, Stephen Smith, iwitness, rpep / Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The student members of the Shoah Foundation Institute Student Association (SFISA), USC STAND, and other groups will host a full line-up of events this April to commemorate Genocide Awareness Month at the University of Southern California.
genocide awareness week, genocide, rwanda, hillel, sfisa / Thursday, March 27, 2014
In the spring of 2000, I agreed to become the president and chief executive officer of Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the predecessor of USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education. My family and I were then living in Chicago, but the hectic pace of preparing to move to Los Angeles did not prevent my wife, Margee, and me from stealing away for a weekend to celebrate our 30th anniversary. We found an isolated beach and flew off, knowing that we would return to the inevitable chaos of moving to LA.
rwanda, kwibuka, op-eds, cagr / Monday, March 31, 2014
A special delegation of staff and supporters of the USC Shoah Foundation arrived in Rwanda yesterday to begin a weeklong mission to learn about the Institute’s work in Rwanda, reinforce their commitment, and share the experience with others.
rwanda, mission, Stephen Smith, kim simon, iwitness, aegis / Wednesday, April 2, 2014
USC Shoah Foundation’s mission to Rwanda ends Tuesday after the delegation attended the Kwibuka20 commemoration ceremony and delved into USC Shoah Foundation’s work in education and archive-building.
mission, rwanda, kwibuka / Monday, April 7, 2014
Students using IWitness can now explore nearly 1,000 historical documents, photographs, publications and video testimonies to contextualize their learning about the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
genocide archive rwanda, rwanda, iwitness / Wednesday, April 16, 2014
In April 1994, the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis officially began, even though the persecution and killing campaign had gone on for decades. In 100 days, close to 1 million women, children and men were slaughtered and tortured to death with machetes, metal sticks and knives. The conflict gained momentum when Belgium became the colonial power in Rwanda after Germany’s defeat in World War I, and further highlighted and reinforced the distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis.
rwanda, kwibuka, op-eds / Monday, April 21, 2014
Two years into USC Shoah Foundation and Kigali Genocide Memorial’s IWitness in Rwanda project, hundreds of students and teachers across Rwanda have been exposed to IWitness and talks are underway to incorporate it into the national curriculum.
iwitness, rwanda, education, teacher training, pilot / Monday, June 16, 2014
After completing an intense two-week introductory session at the University of Southern California, seven students and two professors are ready to begin this summer’s Problems Without Passports trip to Rwanda.
rwanda, problems without passports, amy carnes / Thursday, June 19, 2014
The Problems Without Passports class hit the ground running in Kigali, Rwanda, spending their first four days in the country visiting genocide memorials and meeting with survivor support groups.
problems without passports, rwanda, IBUKA, yannick tona, aegis / Wednesday, June 25, 2014
As an intern at the USC Shoah Foundation and a student on the Problems Without Passports trip to Rwanda this summer, I’m more than familiar with the phrases “Never Forget” and “Never Again.” Sometimes the two seem like tired mottos. They’re valid and true, but oftentimes I think I miss the full impact of those few words.
rwanda, problems without passports, GAM, op-eds / Monday, June 30, 2014

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