[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/genocide8.jpg” _builder_version=”3.23.3″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_5″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″ text_font=”||on||||||” text_text_align=”right” custom_margin=”43px||”]<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Serge Rwigamba speaks to visitors at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″ text_font=”||on||||||” text_text_align=”right” custom_margin=”525px||”]<\/p>\n <\/span>Vivian Irabiz, 22, is one of more than 60% of the population born after the genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″ text_font=”||on||||||” text_text_align=”right” custom_margin=”350px||”]<\/p>\n <\/span>D’Artagnan Habintwal, a guide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, says young people in Rwanda dream of a better place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″]<\/p>\n By Vimvam Tong and Rachel Yeo<\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.23.3″ text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_align=”left” header_font=”||||||||” header_6_font=”Roboto|700|on||||||” header_6_font_size=”12px”]<\/p>\n 500 Now, Mr. Rwigamba, 38, works as a visitor engagement officer at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where 250,000 victims, including his parents, are buried.<\/p>\n \u201cI still have to face a lot other consequences left by the genocide: trauma, troubles in personality, educational challenges,\u201d Mr. Rwigamba, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, said.<\/p>\n Around 35% of Rwandan genocide survivors are estimated to suffer from trauma and other mental health problems, according to a study by Rwanda Mental Health.<\/p>\n But though many like Mr. Rwigamba continue to confront the horrors of genocide 25 years later, most of Rwanda\u2019s more than 12 million people are too young to have lived through or remember the genocide.<\/p>\n In the 2012 census, 62% of the population was under 25, most of them children of survivors, and the current median age is 19.6, based on UN data.<\/p>\n On April 7, the country entered 100 days of mourning to commemorate the genocide that happened 25 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the real challenge the country faces is not how to remember the past, but how to teach it.<\/p>\n Her mother came back to Rwanda and gave birth to her, raising her as a single parent. Now, even though her family has been reunited, she still carries emotional pain over the lost years.<\/p>\n \u201cToday I have a father. I struggled to call him \u201cfather\u201d. I used to call \u201cfa\u2026…\u201d and then would burst into tears,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n After the genocide, Rwandans no longer classify themselves as Tutsi or Hutu, they are simply known as Rwandans. Ms. Irabizi said that the young generation should be active to learn and unite themselves as \u201call Rwandans\u201d.<\/p>\n Educating the young about a tragedy that they did not experience is challenging, many older survivors say.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes the teachers were not comfortable and they would skip the chapter of the genocide or will only summarise it,\u201d Mr. Habintwali said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut after trainings and workshops, teachers have opened up and talked about their experiences. In Rwanda, there is a saying, \u2018if you have a sickness, its better to talk about it than hide it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Adolphe Nimbona, a 30-year-old tour guide and driver, said it is difficult to teach the genocide because some of the students\u2019 parents might have participated.<\/p>\n Mr. Nimbona said he and his mother survived with help from their Hutu friend.<\/p>\n Without \u201chope, safety, food, way to hide\u201d, Mr. Nimbona recalled that \u201cabout 15 soldiers came in to my home and started to shoot the back of some of our group mates with guns.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no hope. Everything is destroyed. The house was broken down. No people we can meet again, my friends, uncles, cousins,\u201d \u00a0he said.<\/p>\n The Kigali Genocide Memorial is one of six in the city with many smaller memorials scattered around the country. It is also the largest memorial and calls itself a place of remembering and learning.<\/p>\n Mr. Nimbona said he will help young people know the truth of the genocide, encouraging people to face up to the past and then move forward.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople bring the devil inside to make something happen, to teach people about forgiving. You can\u2019t make anger every time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Rwigamba said he also chooses to forgive.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s hard for some people to face the prejudices after the genocide. The perpetrators live in guilt. They were guilty about what their parents did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He tells visitors in the memorial that moving forward needs everyone’s understanding. \u201cBecause the world grows up as a union. Prejudice does not help anyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Habintwali said that changing mindsets and promoting harmony will help the next generation to learn from past mistakes.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Rwanda, the genocide happened because our grandfathers dreamed of the genocide. If today we dream of a better place, a better Rwanda, then our children will be in a better place in a good country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_5″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.23.3″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/genocide-memorial.jpg” _builder_version=”3.23.3″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/genocide2.jpg” _builder_version=”3.23.3″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Vimvam Tong and Rachel Yeo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-articles-1","category-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/span>Serge Rwigamba\u00a0was 13 when his parents <\/span>were killed in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis and moderate Hutus that left more than a million dead in Rwanda. He grew up an orphan supported by government assistance.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/genocide1-300x225.jpg\")
<\/span>Vivian Irabizi, 22, a student interning at the local English paper The New Times, met her father for the first time when she was 14. After the genocide, her parents fled to Congo and were separated, each thinking the other had died.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/rwandareports.hkbujournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Habintwali-e1559807428886-200x300.jpg\")
D’Artagnan\u00a0Habintwali, who was 5 during the genocide and is now a guide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, said that it can be difficult for teachers in the classroom, even though programmes are in place to help educators.<\/p>\n