We didn’t take
much time to orient ourselves to the city of Kigali before diving into
interviews…we were too excited to get going with our work! After a day or two
of learning our way around the city, we set off to a café restaurant to meet
with Jean de Dieu Basabose for our first interview. We were anxious to learn
about the work he and his organization, Shalom Educating for Peace, have been
doing in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region.
Founded in 2007,
Shalom Educating for Peace focuses on educating young people on how to resolve
conflict in non-violent ways. Although their traditional education and peer
mediation programs are remarkable, the part of their work that truly piqued my
interest was Shalom’s sports programming. Shalom runs sports camps as a way of
bringing students together to play and learn as a group. What is unique about
their method, though, is that they do not use referees for the sports games. As
they teach the children conflict resolution skills, the students are encouraged
to put these skills into practice as they must be their own referees for the
games. Shalom’s success with this program is promising for the future of Rwanda
as young people learn resolve conflict without violence.
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