Champion Humanity Beyond the Classroom helps parents to raise children that value peace in Rwanda.
The goal for the #GivingTuesday campaign was to raise $10,000 so that 100 parents can attend Peace and Values Education. We also invited visitors to the memorial to sign-up for monthly giving initiatives to support victims of the 1994 Genocide.
Peace and Values Education in Rwanda
Peace and Values education is already taught in the Rwandan national school curriculum. By educating parents and community leaders, Aegis Trust is helping to create parallel messages of peace in schools and at home.
At home, students often report receiving Rwandan history in contradiction to what they learn at school, and are confronted with different values. Parents have also expressed that they are not well-equipped with the knowledge, skills or confidence to talk about their own history with their children. The one-day parents’ workshop explores, through group discussions, the history of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi providing tools to exercise critical thinking about the process of destruction and its consequences. Also through group activities, we explore the process of parenting to the development of positive attitudes and values in our children.
How does Peace and Values Education Help Parents
“I am now eager to initiate a conversation with my children after this workshop because I have the knowledge and skills on how to talk to my children about our history. I have been asked so many times about the origin of ethnicities and the difference between genocide and war which I had no idea about, now I am going to explain the origin with an emphasis on how Rwandans shifted their focus from ethnicity to nationality; citizenship and patriotism. I am now aware that educating my children on our past will help them draw lessons to prepare not only their present but also the bright future of our nation”. Valerie Mukabutera