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Two Smithies Come Together in Rwanda

This Sunday, July 19, will mark the final day of a month-long program that brought together two Smith students to work as volunteers in Rwanda through their shared passion for human rights. Valerie Love ’02 teamed with MacKenzie Hamilton, a member of the incoming class of 2013, in the Global Youth Connect delegation for 14- to 30-year-olds. The program offers young people from a range of ethnic, national, economic and religious backgrounds the opportunity to take action on pressing human rights issues in nations such as Bosnia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nepal.

Love is the Curator for Human Rights Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut. Hamilton, of Harwich, Mass., was the president of her high school’s chapter of STAND (Students Taking Action Now Darfur).

Love recently wrote about her experience from Rwanda for the Gate:

I had been to sub-Saharan Africa several times before, but was unsure of what to expect from Rwanda. Fifteen years ago, between 800,000 and 1 million people were killed in a horrific genocide that attempted to destroy the Tutsi minority and targeted moderate Hutus in Rwanda. Since then, the new government has made good progress in restoring stability and security to a ravaged society; however the many scars of genocide are still visible.

The guesthouse where we stayed in Kigali has only 40 dorm rooms and a few common spaces, but sheltered 2,000 people during the genocide. Among the Rwandan human rights activists in our delegation, there are genocide survivors who lost parents and siblings, as well as those whose families had left Rwanda following earlier waves of violence and had since returned. Delegates have had the opportunity to volunteer with organizations mediating land conflicts, advocating for family planning and public health.

My volunteer placement was with a small grassroots organization working
to end discrimination and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Rwandans. As part of my work, I conducted interviews with community members and am currently writing a report, which I will submit to the Human Rights Watch office in Kigali at the end of July.

As part of the delegation, we attended a gacaca court, the community justice system in Rwanda (gacaca means “on the grass.”) The system brings community members together with the accused in front of a panel of judges. Community members are able to stand and bring forth testimony regarding the case. At the trial we attended, a member of the community stood to explain what had happened at one of the roadblocks where killings had taken place. The judges then asked the man to sit in the front row and answer questions about his involvement in the genocide. My translator turned to me and said, “This happens all the time that people accidentally incriminate themselves while trying to defend others.”

The gacaca trial demonstrated to me how widespread participation in the Rwandan genocide truly was. Murders happened everywhere and in every community. Some of the most gruesome massacres occurred in places where people had gone for protection, particularly churches, hospitals and schools. We visited sites of mass graves in Kigali, and the church in the town of Nyamata, where thousands were massacred and only seven survived.

I feel incredibly privileged to be in the delegation and learn more about the societal issues that continue in Rwanda 15 years after the genocide. I’m humbled to be entrusted with personal stories of violence and loss, and grateful for the friendships that I’ve made in these few short weeks. While there is still much work to be done, I’m hopeful that through our workshops and volunteer projects, we’ve all become a little more united in our goals of promoting dignity and respect for human rights in order to make often stated promises of “never again” indeed a reality.