Rwanda reprise

There's some new folks stopping by so I thought I'd give a summary of our project.

We (Jesse & Lyn Rosten, Chris Davies, and I, Trevor Meier) were inspired a few years ago by some friends who moved to Rwanda to help rebuild. They brought back stories of passionate Rwandans with a hopeful vision of the future. The memories I had of Rwanda were of death and brutality, a hopeless place... so their stories surprised me.

Most of the coverage on Rwanda has focused on the events of 1994 where between 800,000 and 1 million children, women & men were systematically masacred. Rwanda is a very different place now. There is slowly climbing prosperity and open access to education. They've had their international debt lifted by the G8. There is little corruption, the streets are safe, and there's building happening everywhere in Kigali.

They still face problems of a close-handed government, fair trials and reintegration of 120,000+ genocidaires, on-going trauma from the genocide, high population density (the highest in Africa) and a 95% rural subsistence-agriculture economy on quickly shrinking plots of land. And though education is free, the quality is low because the capacity doesn't exist to teach all these kids.

If anyone deserves our (western) attention, it's this country we left to rot in 1994. There's an almost-schizophrenic view in Rwanda, not wanting westerners to interfere, but knowing they need our help. Rwandans have their own ideas. We talked to some bright university students about what they want Rwanda to look like. They don't want to run off to America to get rich. They believe in their nation, their people. They don't want white knights. They need friends, expertise, training, investment, access to markets, and they want to do the rest.

In Rwandese there's anger, bitterness, resentment, and pain mixed in with passion, desire for peace and community, hope and vision. Our film is following some of these stories, how reintegration is going, how Canadians are helping with Christian values-based leadership education, how Rwandans are building capacity in their own people, and a few Rwandans who are striking out to access international markets.

How does a country move beyond something as devastating as genocide? We're watching it happen in Rwanda.