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From Never Again

Never Again Rwanda: Goings and Comings for January and February 2007

Questions or inquiries about any of the information related below, or if you would like further details and links, please contact Jed Oppenheim at jed@neveragaininternational.org or go to the website www.neveragainrwanda.org

Thank you.

• 2-5 January: In partnership with Global Youth Connect (an American based NGO), Never Again Rwanda (NAR) helped organize a 4-day training workshop with youth from Rwanda and abroad (mostly America). The theme of the workshop was “Human Rights Education and Advocacy.” The roughly 30 youth worked together on various action plans and discussions with relation to the overall theme. NAR recruited the Rwandan youth, helped coordinate, plan and facilitate the workshop. This was the third partnership between the two organizations and it is a relationship that will be continuing this upcoming June and July.

• 9-12 January: In partnership with Global Youth Connect, NAR hosted 3 temporary interns from their international delegation for 4 days at the Peacebuilding Centre. The goal was for international youth to become familiar with the actions, activities and day-to-day functioning of a grassroots Rwandan initiative. It was determined with the interns that they would work with members of NAR to create a tool that could be used for advocacy and action around the Genocide in Darfur. The tool is meant to be functional at all levels of society, anywhere—i.e. how can people without resources and/or funding (e.g. NAR Youth Club members) still make their voices and opinions heard with regard to ending the Genocide in Darfur and preventing others from occurring? The idea was also to incorporate the teaching-learning of other Genocides that have happened around the world in the past and not just focus on that of Rwanda—this is to expand the depth and scope of which we understand Genocide in order to prevent it. After a brief 4 days, an easily modifiable and printable (depending on your context and needs) PowerPoint was created for dissemination. The PowerPoint examines the Genocides in Cambodia and Bosnia (with comparisons to Rwanda), then looks at the situation in Darfur and concludes with ideas for action—depending on your resources. For example, if you work in a poor, urban community in Rwanda, the power of word-of-mouth can cause an anti-Genocide movement to break out. For more information about this, and what you can do, please contact Jed Oppenheim at jed@neveragaininternational.org

• 9-12 January: As a side project, one of the temporary interns and Jed decided to seek funding for the purposes of collating and publishing many of the poems, songs and/or essays that were written by Rwandan youth during Never Again’s 10th Anniversary Commemorative History writing contest. We see these as a valuable resource for youth in Rwanda and globally and they should not simply take up space on the shelf in the Peacebuilding Centre. In the final report of the project, one of the recommendations was to publish many of the pieces. Our plan is to make an English, French, and especially a Kinyarwandan version of the booklet that can be easily disseminated to youth in Rwanda and stakeholder agencies and bodies here and abroad. We have already begun sending letters of inquiries to interested parties. For more information and the concept note or sample poems in each language, please contact Jed or Kuong Ly at kuong.ly@bc.edu

• 8 February: Members of NAR attended a 1-day workshop sponsored by the Rwandan Youth Alliance in collaboration with the World Youth Alliance (www.wya.net). This is an international organization that is focused on promoting youth, and their concerns, all over the world. It is run by youth, for youth and seeks partnerships with local student and youth groups. NAR was invited to participate in discussion and knowledge-building on how to promote youth voices in Rwanda and abroad. For more information contact Jed.

• 9 February: 6 Members of NAR attended a workshop put on by Radio La Benevolencija (RLB) on how to improve the programming of their Generation Grand Lacs show that runs every Saturday in Rwanda, Burundi, and Eastern Congo. The workshop brought the discussion facilitators together (of which NAR members are included, as they facilitate for NAR Youth Clubs) to come up with ideas and recommendations and to improve methodology for the implementation and dissemination of the programme and its objectives. Changes have already begun to occur. For more information, please contact Albert Nzamukwereka at albert.nzamukwereka@gmail.com

• 10 February: NAR Youth Clubs expanded back into Kigali International Academy, where a club had previously existed but had folded for a year. NAR members went and introduced Never Again (the organization) and Never Again (the concept) to the awaiting secondary school learners. The youth were very inspired to start being active in their school and community. They have lots of ideas and have begun working with them.

• 11 February: The Peacebuilding Centre hosted a 1-day training of trainers’ workshop on “Debate and Debating Technique.” This is the first step of an upcoming contract with the Open Society Institute and iDebate on getting youth to promote freedom of expression through debate and discussion. The trained facilitators will then go into Rwandan schools (some where NAR Youth Clubs are active) and train the students on debating. To be followed by debating competitions, leading up to a final competition amongst debating teams from the various schools and prized for success. The final competition for this phase will be 3 March 2007. After that, OSI will likely be funding the expansion of the activities into other parts of Rwanda, with the help, coordination and facilitation of NAR—all to promote the democratic process, human rights and peace building. For more information, please contact Albert Nzamukwereka, Director of Peacebuilding.

Ongoing

• “Generation Grand Lacs,” an interactive radio show on Contact FM meant to be the voice of youth in the Great Lakes Region. Bi-weekly, NAR youth and facilitator come to the Peacebuilding Centre to participate and discussion around the radio show and the weekly theme. Recent topics have been “Extremism” and “Heroes.” NAR’s Albert Nzamaukwereka was interviewed on the show about heroes. He talked about people like Martin Luther King Jr, and his visit to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee (USA). The youth have also recently received personal radios so they may follow along with the programming on weeks when they do not meet at the Peacebuilding Centre.

• Baseline Assessment of NAR Youth Clubs. A survey questionnaire has been created and translated into French, English and Kinyarwandan so as to gauge how youth club members, throughout Rwanda, feel about their activities and the impact of the activities on their school, communities, families and local authorities. Small sponsorship was found to conduct the assessment, which began on 27 February outside of Gisenyi at College Apperel de Bukinanyana—one of the first NAR Youth Clubs. For more information please contact Jed (jed@neveragaininternational.org)

In the works

• NAR will be submitting a proposal to the Norwegian People’s Aid in the coming weeks. The main activities in the proposal are to further carry out and expand and train for debates, and to fund more of the creative arts oriented activities of the NAR Youth Clubs and Associations (for non-schooling youth) as they relate to human rights, peace building, critical thinking and connectivity. For more information and to provide input, please contact Jed.

• NAR is currently in the process of reviewing proposals with both the Open Society Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy. The proposals revolve around further funding of the debate activities and also trainings on including more youth participation in the upcoming electoral season (beginning of 2008). For more information please contact Albert (albert.nzamukwereka@gmail.com).

• NAR members have been volunteering time at a commune of child-headed households in a district of Kigali called Kinyinya. The orphans call their association “Nsanga.” A concept note is being worked on that will revolve around NAR’s April commemoration event taking place at the commune. An all-day event would take place, including beautification, sporting matches, gardening and discussions; the event would bring NAR Youth Clubs to the commune to “hang-out” with their peers who live in this very difficult circumstance. The event would also bring attention to a forgotten community. For more information and to provide input, please contact Jed.

Announcements

• NAR’s 1st Annual International Youth Peace Summit, scheduled for July, has been postponed until a further date (December). We are still accepting applications for the summit and will announce the new dates soon. For more information, please go to www.neveragainrwanda.org

• Joseph Nkurunziza, NAR’s Executive Chairperson, will be heading to Nepal for 2 weeks at the beginning of March to help facilitate a workshop on human rights and conflict management. Good luck!

• Mireille Suarette, previous NAR intern, has found a job in Rwanda and has decided to stay in Rwanda for the long-term. She is working at Mini-FOTRA, for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Good job!

• NAR is excited to announce that it has received a lot of applicants to come to Rwanda and intern or research with us. Our first researcher arrives at the end of March. Between May and September, there will be lots of activity here at the Peacebuilding Centre. If you have ideas for potential work they may do, beyond what they will already be doing, please contact Jed.

THANK YOU and HAVE A PLEASANT DAY,

NEVER AGAIN RWANDA

Questions or inquiries about any of the information related below, or if you would like further details and links, please contact Jed Oppenheim at jed@neveragaininternational.org or go to the website www.neveragainrwanda.org

Thank you.