Elizabeth, my colleague in Chicago, had the pleasure of attending a workshop where Dave Ormesher, founder of GRDP, gave a summary of the status of Rwanda to a group of U.S. Entrepreneurs. He showed a brief video that explained the history of the genocide. In 1994 the war turned into a genocide calamity that ended with 800,000 to a million people being massacred in 100 days. We know that the leader of the RPF rebel movement, Paul Kagame, became the country’s president and that there has been peace since then. We know that the genocide was based on ethnic lines with Hutus and Tutsis. Here are a few questions Elizabeth asked Dave about his experience working in Rwanda.
Q: “Do the Hutus and Tutsis still hate each other? Don’t they want justice for their families and friends that were killed?”
A: “They could have gone down that road, but where would that have taken them? They saw that there is a better life if they put that in the past and work on Rwanda. This is what the Rwandans have told me. Of course I am an outsider, but everything I have seen says they get this and they are an amazing people”
Q: “How did they put it aside? Earlier, you made the comparison to Somalia, what did Rwanda do that Somalia didn’t?”
A: “Everyone I have asked from all over Rwanda have given me the same answer over and over. They have good leadership. They believe in President Kagame’s dream of making a better future, the 2020 dream, as it’s called, of building a middle class and better Rwanda. They are looking to the future, not the past.”
Q: “Is it safe to travel to Rwanda? Are you scared to go there?”
A: “It’s very safe. I have been there many times and never felt unsafe walking around the city, not even at night. There is plenty of police presence. One time I even lost my blackberry and figured it was gone forever. Four days later I got a message that someone had given it to a priest who was trying to find me in the country and it was returned. There is such a sense of pride in Rwanda.”
One of the entrepreneurs in the workshop that travelled with GRDP to Rwanda had a video that showed the fourth Saturday of the month. Every fourth Saturday every citizen of Rwanda takes time out of their day to do community cleaning projects so that the streets are clean, the trees are cut back, the neighborhoods are nice. We could really use this type of community spirit in Canada!
