The RwandaN genocide

Our Speaker:

Carl Wilkens: As a humanitarian aid worker, Carl moved his young family to Rwanda in the spring of 1990. When the genocide was launched in April 1994, Carl refused to leave, even when urged to do so by close friends, his church and the United States government. Thousands of expatriates evacuated and the United Nations pulled out most of its troops. Carl was the only American to remain in the country. Venturing out each day into streets crackling with mortars and gunfire, he worked his way through roadblocks of angry, bloodstained soldiers and civilians armed with machetes and assault rifles in order to bring food, water and medicine to groups of orphans trapped around the city. His actions saved the lives of hundreds.

Resources:

• I’m Not Leaving - Carl Wilken’s first-hand account as the only American to remain in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.
• I'm Not Leaving - A Window into the 1994 Genocide - A lesson to accompany Carl's book.
• I'm Not Leaving Curriculum Package - A teacher's guide to accompany the book.
• Rwanda: Looking for the Good - A photo journal of a 2016 trip to Rwanda led by Carl Wilkens.
• Ghosts of Rwanda - PBS documentary Carl mentioned.
• Why I Stayed in Rwanda - TED Talk from Carl.
• Rising from the Ashes - An inspiring piece on resilience and forgiveness.

More Resources from Carl:

Two Books About the History of Africa

• Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa / From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair: A History of 50 Years of Independence (Public Affairs, 2005, 2011) An excellent introduction to the history, politics, and people of post-colonial Africa.
• Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999) A riveting account of King Leopold II of Belgium and his plundering of the Congo.

Six Books About the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda

• Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998) An up close and personal account of the Rwandan genocide.
• Immaculee Illibagiza, Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst The Rwandan Holocaust (Hay House, 2006) A stunning first person account of survival and forgiveness during the horror of the Rwandan genocide of 1994.)
• Linda Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide (Zed Books, 2000) A meticulously researched book on the background of the Rwandan genocide and the failure to prevent it.
• Consolee Nishimwe, Tested to the Limit: A Genocide Survivor’s Story of Pain, Resillience and Hope (Balboa Press, 2012

Three (Recent) Books About Rwanda

• Stephen Kinzer, A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) An engaging account of Rwanda’s post-genocide recovery and the leadership of President Paul Kagame.
• Josh Ruxin, A Thousand Hills to Heaven: Love, Hope, and A Restaurant in Rwanda (Little, Brown and Company, 2013) The story of Josh and Alissa Ruxin’s life changing experiences working in development in Rwanda and opening “Heaven,” their downtown Kigali restaurant.
• John Steward, From Genocide to Generosity (Langham Global Library, 2015) A moving account of Rwandan healing and reconciliation in the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide.

Films about the 1994 Genocide and after

• Beyond the Gates (20th Century Fox, 2007)
• Sometimes in April (HBO Video, 2005)
• Ghosts of Rwanda (PBS Video/Frontline, 2004)
• Kinyarwanda (Breaking Glass Pictures, 2012)
• Rising From Ashes (2012)
• Sweet Dreams (2013)
• Wounded Healers (2009)
• Kamora: To Heal (Vimeo Streaming, 2014)

Podcasts, Ted Talks and one more (Rwanda tourism) video

• Romeo & Juliet in Kigali: How A Soap Opera Sought to Change Behavior in Rwanda (April 16, 2018 on Hidden Brain: A Conversation About Life’s Unseen Patterns.)
• Outside In - Includes an interesting and fun piece on the first all-female debate team in Rwanda, (Invisibilia podcast, July 29, 2016)
• The Neuroscience of Happiness - Rick Hanson - podcast by the greater good.
• Hardwiring Happiness: The Hidden Power of Everyday Experiences on the Modern Brain (How to Overcome the Brain’s Negativity Bias) Dr. Rick Hanson (TEDx talk)
• When You Shouldn’t Follow The Rules,” Laura Lane (2015 TED talk) Ms. Lane was a U.S. Embassy Officer in Kigali, Rwanda at the outbreak of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
• Discovering You Matter - Rebecca Davis (TED talk) - Rebecca teaches dance to street kids in Kigali through her work with The Rebecca Davis Dance Company
• Rwanda (An eight minute video on Vimeo (Mammoth) This beautiful video features outtakes from a video commissioned by Rwanda Tourism.

Additional Resources:

• Finding Beauty in a Broken World - Through the art of mosaic, Terry Tempest Williams joins genocide survivors in a small village in Rwanda to build a memorial from the rubble of war.
• Baking Cakes in Kigali - Gaile Parkins' novel is about "Angel Tungaraza: mother, cake baker, pillar of her community, keeper of secrets big and small. Angel’s kitchen is an oasis in the heart of Rwanda, where visitors stop to order cakes but end up sharing their stories, transforming their lives."
• Speak Rwanda - Julian R. Pierce's novel is the story of" ten people: Hutu and Tutsi, civilians and soldiers, mothers, politicians, and orphaned children, as they attempt to survive one of the most disturbing massacres since the Second World War; but the novel is not a story of war, instead it documents the experiences of the people who lived before, during, and after such an event."
• The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones - Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana "underwent the mind-numbing pain of having members of his church and family butchered. He founded the Sonrise orphanage and school for children orphaned in the genocide, and he now leads reconciliation efforts between his own Tutsi people, the victims of this horrific massacre, and the perpetrators, the Hutus."
• Stuck: Rwandan Youth and the Struggle for Adulthood - "Spotlighting failed masculinity, urban desperation, and forceful governance, Marc Sommers tells the dramatic story of young Rwandans who are “stuck,” striving against near-impossible odds to become adults."
• The Key to My Neighbor's House - "Interviewing victims and aggressors, war orphans and war criminals, Serbian militiamen and NATO commanders, Neuffer explores the extent to which genocide erodes a nation’s social and political environment, just as it destroys the individual lives of the aggressor’s perceived enemies."
• Empowering Young People to Repair the World - TED Talk from Mark Gudgel.
• “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide - Samantha Power asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow “never again” repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Power draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington’s top policymakers, thousands of declassified documents, and her own reporting from modern killing fields to provide the answer.