President Kagame will speak at 11 a.m. in Lincoln Theater about the future of his country in an address titled “Vision 20/20.” The event is free and open to the public, but tickets must be ordered by noon on Friday, March 8, through the University box office. You can order tickets online at this address:
https://www.anchoronline.org/Rwanda-Lecture
Following Kagame's talk on March 12, at 3:30 p.m., there will be a symposium in Wilde Auditorium titled “After the Trauma of the Holocaust and Genocide: Survival, Memorialization, and Reconstruction.” (Scroll down for details.)
Genocide and Holocaust Education Initiative
President Kagame is serving his second seven-year term as president of the central African nation. In early 1994, Rwanda experienced what many feel was Africa's worst genocide in modern times. Kagame led the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) that fought against and eventually defeated the genocidal government in July 1994.
The Maurice Greenberg Center’s new Genocide and Holocaust Education Initiative will preserve the memories of the Holocaust and genocides worldwide and help spread the lessons that need to be learned from them. The initiative’s activities will include courses, workshops, public programs, exhibitions, and web-based projects. The initiative will allow for the wide dissemination and distribution of materials for teaching about the Holocaust and genocide to educators in the Greater Hartford community and across the nation.
Helping to advance this major new initiative will be University of Hartford alumnus Joseph Olzacki, who was recently named a special advisor on genocide and Holocaust education at the Greenberg Center. Olzacki brings more than 20 years of experience as an educator in Connecticut schools to the position. He has received national attention for his innovative curriculum, the “Identity Project,” and has experience teaching about genocide prevention and strengthening student identities through the arts.
Symposium to Follow Kagame's Talk
On March 12 at 3:30 p.m., there will be a symposium in Wilde Auditorium titled “After the Trauma of the Holocaust and Genocide: Survival, Memorialization, and Reconstruction.”
Distinguished scholars from New England universities will discuss genocide and Holocaust education. They are:
– Avinoam Patt, the Philip D. Feltman Professor of Modern Jewish History and director of the Museum of Jewish Civilization at the University of Hartford, who will moderate the discussion;
– Lisa J. Laplante, law professor and human rights scholar and researcher and interim director of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, who will speak on “Post-Conflict Recovery and Transitional Justice;”
– Steven Rosenthal, professor of history at the University of Hartford, who will speak on “The proliferation of genocides in the 20th century;”
– Mari Firkatian, professor of history at the University of Hartford's Hillyer College, who will speak about “Remembering the Armenian Genocide;”
– Shyamala Raman, professor of economics and international studies at the University of St. Joseph, who will speak on “Vision 20/20 in Rwanda and the Millennium Development Goals;” and
– Sara Brown, Doctoral Candidate in Holocaust and genocide studies at Clark University, who will speak on “The Genocide in Rwanda: Perpetrators, Victims, Rescuers and Recovery.”
The symposium is free and open to the public. Area high school and university students are strongly encouraged to attend. For more information on the symposium, contact the Greenberg Center at 860.768.4964 or mgcjs@hartford.edu.
About Paul Kagame
Republic of Rwanda President Paul Kagame, 54, was sworn in as President for a second seven-year term on Sept. 6, 2010. Kagame, who was born in Rwanda’s Southern Province, fled with his family from pre-independence ethnic persecution and violence in 1960, crossing into Uganda where Kagame spent 30 years as a refugee. In 1990, he returned to Rwanda to lead the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) four-year struggle to liberate the country from the autocratic and divisive order established since independence. Led by Kagame, the Rwanda Patriotic Army defeated the genocidal government in July 1994 and the RPF subsequently set Rwanda on its current course towards reconciliation, nation building and socioeconomic development.
Kagame was appointed Vice President and Minister for Defense in the Government of National Unity on July 19, 1994, and four years later was elected Chairman of the RPF, a partner in the Government of National Unity. On April 22, 2000, Paul Kagame took the oath of office for the first time, after being elected by the Transitional National Assembly.
President Kagame has received recognition for his leadership in peace building and reconciliation, development, good governance, promotion of human rights and women’s empowerment, and advancement of education and information and communication technologies (ICT), and is widely sought after to address regional and international audiences on a range of issues including African development, leadership, and the potential of ICT as a dynamic industry as well as an enabler for Africa’s socioeconomic transformation.
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