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Beyond Trauma: Survival, Forgiveness and Healing after the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsis
“They dug a hole for us, put us in it and buried us. But they didn’t know we were seeds that would grow. Rwandans became seeds, we grew and today we are standing strong. Nothing can stand in our way!”
~ Rwandan President, Paul Kagame
Please join us for a special Essential Conversations session on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 on: “Beyond Trauma: Survival, Forgiveness and Healing after the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsis”.
This is a follow-up to two sessions on “Peacemaking from a Rwandan Perspective” that were co-designed and led by Kigali-based Merveille Gakuba and Jeremy Solomons in February and March 2022.
This new session will focus more closely on Merveille’s personal journey to recovery and wholeness over the last 30 years in a virtual “Fireside Chat” Q&A format with her husband Jeremy.
Merveille will talk about how she was not only able to survive the horrors of the Genocide but how she was also able to:
Come to terms with and fully grieve the brutal murder, disappearance and loss of her father and three brothers, amongst many other relatives
Learn to forgive but not forget those who perpetrated these and other serious crimes against humanity, sometimes in face-to-face meetings with those “genocidiaires” who harmed her own family
Heal her heart to be able to love and thrive anew
We invite you to witness the stories, consider the questions and paradoxes, and discern the learnings of this powerful context for healing our global traumas.
Above image from Left to right, Jeremy, Max, Merveille, and Emma. Second image shows The Tree of Protection, which was unveiled during ceremonies for the 30th Kwibuka commemoration of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsis.
Merveille Gakuba is now completing her studies as a mental health counselor at Mount Kigali University and next year she plans to create the Kigali Women’s Centre, an independent residential, therapeutic and educational facility to treat, heal and empower Rwandan women suffering from trauma related to the Genocide and to gender-based violence.
Jeremy Solomons is an independent leadership consultant and peace activist, who co-founded the Globally Conscious Peacemakers’ virtual community - globally-conscious-peacemakers.org - which holds free monthly web calls on anything to do with making a sustainable, positive difference in the world.
Merveille and Jeremy are now raising in Kigali a young peacemaker Max, who just met his big sister Emma for the first time in Austin, Texas.