Delegates attending Peace Education in an Era of Crisis spent three days learning from each other and from the example of the Rwandan people on how to create lasting peace.
The conference, which took place July 11-13 in Kigali, Rwanda, was sponsored by Kent State University’s School of Peace and Conflict Studies, Kent State’s Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education, the University of Rwanda’s Centre for Conflict Management, and the Aegis Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending genocide and other atrocities in the world.
Kigali, Rwanda, was chosen as the location for the conference, to make it more available to those from Africa, to further expand Kent State’s growing relationship with the University of Rwanda, and to give attendees the opportunity to learn about the peace-building work of the Rwandan people.
Since the country’s 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, in which more than 1 million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by the government-backed Hutu tribe, the country has worked to include peace education in its curriculums for school children.
Numerous conference attendees listen to speakers during the three-day conference.
On July 10, conference attendees toured the Kigali Genocide Memorial, to learn about the history behind the 100-day slaughter and how the country has worked to recover from the bloodshed.
They also took part in a ceremony to lay roses at the memorial, where 250,000 of the victims are laid to rest in mass graves.
Educators from the Stow-Munroe Falls City School District in Northeast Ohio, meet with Aggee Shyaka Mugabe, Ph.D., (standing) associate professor and acting director of the University of Rwanda's Centre for Conflict Management. Seated from left are: outgoing high school Principal Jeff Hartmann, incoming high school Principal Amanda Murray, Assistant Principal Evelyn Haught, and Assistant Superintendent Kristen Prough and her husband, Akron, Ohio Police Sgt. Steven Prough.
Neil Cooper, director of Kent State’s School of Peace and Conflict Studies, talks with Mercedes Somosierra, an attorney and peace activist from Argentina, who was among the attendees.
Amanda Johnson, director of the Read Center, watches the presentations with Isidro Fierro, dean of international studies, Universidad Espiritu Santo (Holy Spirit University) in Ecuador.
Students from Umubano Academy in Kigali, give a play-acting presentation on how they use peace skills in the classroom to avoid conflict. The co-ed school is the keystone project of A Partner in Education, a nonprofit organization that works to provide quality education in Rwanda and further local and international peace.
Conference presenter Angie Kotler, an educator from the University of Sussex, in Brighton, U.K., and an education consultant for A Partner in Education, which operates the Umubano Academy in Kigali, chats with a fellow conference attendee.
Handwoven baskets are used to decorate the conference center and many other public spaces in Rwanda.
Photo credits: Bob Christy, Hannah Park, Lisa Abraham/Kent State University; Patrick Ndayishimiye /the Aegis Trust