From May ’07 to to late June, I was on a trip to the USA, attending the Rotary World Peace Symposiun and Convention. During the trip, I was hosted by Outward Bound Centre for Peace Building and Outward Bound New York for a period of about 6 weeks. This was a great time to meet peers and mentor in Outward Bound. I was able to meet a and make presentations to a couple individuals and institutions.

Shira and her family were very supportive in providing a family atmosphere in always.

Lots of thanks to Beth Anglin- and her team in OBCP, and Robert- OB New York. It was a memorable moment.

This was a visit in the city to watch Baseball- my first time!!

A great opportunity was visiting schools in NY and give lectures. In Particular, I was invited to Valedus and Taft colleges, both Outward Bound Expeditionary Schools, to talk to students on possibilities of peace in the role, and what the world expects from them.

With Robert and Elizabeth at the Shawangunks climbing. this wa sa great treat for any outward Bounder from Robert and Elizabeth.

Studies ranged from class lecture, field studies, public lectures and so on. It was an invaluable experience. we studied different conflicts in the world, and had our conflict tracking field visits in Southern Thailand, and Northern Thailand, both regions of Conflicts in Thailand.

Each picture is linked to an Album. Click and view the all the albums:

These photos were taken during my time, training at outward bound Kenya, 1999-2004. Photos taken on Mount Kilimanjaro and Kenya, Rhino Rock, Maasai plains, and OBTK centre

I was away in Thailand for studies from January 07-March 07. This was part of my bigger picture for my vision for Outward Bound Rwanda.

In August of 2006, I had been called from Rwanda to go to Kenya to attend to my dad who had then been brought from Tanzania, sick. Examination at the hospital indicated that he was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis which had been neglected for long, and he was virtually dysfunctional side, with excruciating pain.

I took him to th ehospitai n Eldoret, and spent a couple of days with him. During this time, he was able to see everyone in the family- children, grand-children, and inlaws.

I went back to Rwanda for my work. After 2 months of homecare at my sisters place, he was alright, and left for his home in Tanzania.

I left Rwanda January for Thailand. It is there in February that I recieved a call from my sister that the old man dropped off the perch.

I am happy because I did all I could when he was a live. Ihad not however fulfilled one promise, taking him back to Rwanda.

Rest in peace Daddy

Annet is a great special friend and sister. She is second year student of Law in Kigali. I have know her for 3 years now, and our families have become great friends too.

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My Personal Background

I was born of a Rwandan refugee family in Kenya. My parents left Rwanda during the ethic upheavals of 1959. I was born and lived among the Maasai pastoral community of Kenya. I lived and studied with them. I shared in every bit of their misery such as hunger, tribal wars, poor schooling, and specifically for us lack of farm land. My family was basically peasants who lived on charcoal burning and subsistence farming.

After high school n 1998, I worked as a hawker of second hand shoes, and during low business seasons, I enrolled as a porter to Mount Kilimanjaro. In 1999, I participated in a mountain challenge program marking the 50^th anniversary of saving sight in the World with Sight Savers International in which 11 blind young people climbed Mount. Kilimanjaro to Gilman’s summit. I had specifically worked with the filming crew. The film later became the best video travel feature in Great Britain, and the prize money was sent for my university education, at Christ the Teacher Institute for Education, an accredited institute of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota with a BSc.Ed (2^nd Class Upper division- Magna cum Laude) in May 2004.

It was rather peaceful living in Loitokitok. Yet, the tag of statelessness/refugee was always an issue to us, especially when we tried to delve more into civil engagements, or economic improvement. As a result, it was peaceful to take a low social engagement in daily life. Some factors like bars from citizenship, acquisition of land really meant no economic emancipation, and also meant the family could not cater for the education and wellbeing of 8 children at one time. All was well, as long as we maintained a less influential position in the society, a position that my dad always interpreted as one of servitude.

Professional and volunteer Experience

Over the period I was schooling and one year before, I was engaged in Outdoor education and Therapy with Outward Bound Kenya. During this time, I was involved in training of and evaluation of youth’s at risk programs, youth Leadership challenge programs, and cadets special programs, and team building programs for corporate groups. For the internship year and all Youth’s at risk program I volunteered. I grouped youths from my village, organize for fundraising, and volunteered my services an instructor for Outward Bound Program. Over this time, I held different leadership positions, from an Intern Instructor to a Lead Instructor, then to a Course Coordinator.

In the Early years of 2000 and 2001, Kenya was undergoing political awareness and revolution. As the leader of the youth group, I was send to the diocese to train as a Trainer of Trainer in Civic Education in areas of governance, democracy, responsible citizenship, human rights, constitution, church and politics, and women in decision making. All the training I gave later for one year was purely voluntary. Yet as a stateless person, this would jeopardize family “peacefulness,” and so it was only safer for me to be less engaged, especially as my statelessness in Kenya was becoming an issue.

In June 2004, I relocated to Rwanda, my home Country. At Green Hills Academy where I am a teacher, I am the mentor of the Interact club. In the club, we carry out community service, visit orphanages, tree planting, and currently we are supporting a family and paying school fees for one of the children, ‘the Interact Child.’

I this year August 2005, I volunteered for seven days as a Field Counselor for the Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) with World Vision Rwanda, hence recommending and registering them for sponsorship.

My Country Rwanda

In 1994, decades of politically motivated ethnic scapegoat culminated in a wholesale slaughter of the Rwanda’s Tutsi minority, along with many Hutu moderates. People who everyday lived together drinking and eating together, people who intermarried and prayed together preyed each other. Over a period of three months, after people were chased in the woods, up and down the hills and valleys, children and the old alike, women and the youths were cruelly butchered by order of a system that aimed at a systematic destruction of a people. People were incarcerated, others volunteered while others unconsciously (children) found themselves killing. It is worth noting that the masses were conditioned into hating and victim consciousness that their poverty, land scarcity, lack of education was caused by their brothers-in-laws, wives, husbands, cousins, village mates- Tutsi. After the three months over a million Tutsis and Hutus who did not countenance the system were denied the right to live.

The ordeals have left up to 120,000 children orphaned; one third of all households headed by women; as many as 85,000 households are headed by children; and an enormous percentage of the country’s accumulated skills, knowledge and potential lay buried in the mass graves, or hidden in exile;. A quarter-million or more children are unaccompanied minors. Tens of thousands of genocide survivors, predominantly women and minors, need special assistance. Rape used in Rwanda as a genocide strategy, has left many women who living with AIDS and children are being orphaned by AIDS everyday.

My vision: Career Objectives and Academic Interests.

It is against this background of experience in my life and my country Rwanda that

I would like to be a participant in ‘uneducating’ the society and educate the young people values of integrity, respect and acceptance for others, tolerance and compassion and save them from the vulnerability caused basic human wants of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, literacy and love.

Through my life transforming experiences with experiential education, I have a passion to use experiential education for conflict resolution at global level. I have used it already in resolving parent-teenage conflicts- it works.

I am preparing for a course whereby children who were taught from hatred, suspicion and mistrust, anger, guilty, self-hate, or even self love, can be ‘retaught’ through value forming experiences that foster compassion, trust building, interdependence, team work, accepting challenges, peace and conflict resolution.

The ‘we-feeling vs you’ and the ‘us vs. them’ mentality, and group identity which breed feelings of frustration and revenge, that produces a cycle of violence and victim consciousness will be superceded when young people in particular, are educated in way that demand interdependence rather than competition, and the realization that our greatest enemy is not the neighbor but our defeatist and self-limiting attitudes that harbors scarcity mentality; this is a moral equivalent of war.

I am prepared to acquire any knowledge especially in regard to peace building and conflict resolution. I am keen to understand the relationship between human nature and conflict orientation, and how to foster human life devoid of destructive conflict. I am convinced that we can separate ourselves from global conflicts which are manifestations of our daily conflicts. A deep understanding of the latter will help us resolve and prevent conflicts.

I believe it is not enough to develop the peacefulness and trust and relationship to build a lasting peace. Together with this, is the economic emancipation of the poor people and nations, so that they focus their energy into becoming their best selves, and not spend their whole lives working and thinking on where to sleep, and what to eat and wear.

Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the World are seeking each other, so that the World may come into being. Teilhard de Chardin