As I walk through the skyscrapers lining the streets of New York City, I feel a very long way from my home in Rwanda and it is a bit surreal to be here. But I know that the decisions made here at the United Nations World Summit this week will have a huge impact on the people in my hometown.
Leaders meeting at the summit have the chance to agree that all people in the future will be protected from genocide, mass killing and ethnic cleansing. If this goes through, millions may be saved from experiencing the horrors we saw in Rwanda. I do not want my grandchildren to go through what my children did, and feel strongly that this meeting is a real chance for change. I hope people across the world realise what may happen in New York this week.
It is the day before the UN summit begins and 170 leaders of countries from South Africa and Sri Lanka to Australia and Azerbaijan are pouring into the city as I write. I feel very proud to have travelled so far and to have spoken today alongside the UN special assistant to the secretary general on the prevention of genocide as well as another survivor, from Bosnia, at a press conference ahead of the summit.
After the conference, we set up a giant mock graveyard with more than 100 stones right outside the UN for photographers and media to show what could happen if leaders do not agree to stop future genocides. The gravestones had the words “Never again?” written on them. It was a very, very powerful picture.
Even after the horrible atrocities that occurred in Rwanda, I still have hope for both what could happen in New York and what we are achieving right now in my country. I am a programme coordinator for Oxfam in three provinces of Rwanda. We train women and men to resolve conflicts that arise so that communities can begin to work together.
The programme has achieved some amazing results. The people, including illiterate women, who we have trained have been elected to the traditional justice councils and the mediation commission. Local leaders from both Rwanda and Uganda at the border even asked some of the people we had trained to help resolve a conflict between the communities living on the border. Some of the women, who were illiterate before the training, are learning to read and write.
We also work with former soldiers to reintegrate them into the community and build up trust between them and their neighbours. Now there are even weddings between Hutus and Tutsis, whereas right after the genocide it was impossible. Our efforts have been so successful that the Rwandan leaders and communities would like us to extend our work across the entire country.
Grace Mukagabiro, from Rwanda, works for Oxfam and is reporting from the UN World Summit in New York
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