Sachem East Project SPECTRUM/Peer Education welcomed Eugenie Mukeshimana, a survivor of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Ms. Mukeshimana spoke to three groups of students, most of which are sophomores and are learning about the very events she lived through as part of their global history and geography class.
Ms. Mukeshimana described her life in Rwanda before the genocide began and painted a picture of a close-knit community. She was 22 years old and pregnant with her first child when her world was turned upside down and after she was rejected by her friends, forced to go into hiding. The evolution from Rwanda of her childhood to a nation in which friends and neighbors turned into targets of genocide, was unsettling and impactful, she said.
Students agree that it was important to hear this story from someone who was there.
Sachem East senior Brooke Howell: “You spend your whole life sitting in a classroom learning about events that have occurred, such as the Rwanda genocide, but nothing has the same impact as hearing about the experiences from someone who suffered through and survived these events.”
Sachem East junior Stefani Kalab: “Listening to Eugenie and how positive she is, even after everything she went through, showed me that she is an incredibly strong person. If she can be positive after the horrific things she lived through, we can be positive too.”
Like many survivors of genocide, Ms. Mukeshimana believes she has a moral obligation to tell others what occurred in Rwanda, as it honors the lives of those who were lost.