RWANDA - PAVILION

Shared Stories deals with experiences on the topics of war, genocide, diaspora and home in relation to the conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda in the 1990s. In the very first exchange between Bosnian, Rwandan and German artists, personal experiences, thoughts and visions in different settings were exchanged online and artistically processed. With the kind support of the German Embassy of Sarajevo and the Ministarstvo kulture i sport Kantona Sarajevo artists from the three participation countries developed artistic material in remote online exchange and created two videos. Both videos show artistic and documentary contributions from all three participating countries. A total of 15 dancers, authors, musicians and filmmakers were involved.

^{_{June 18, 2012 | Documentary on the legacy of the Gacaca courts}}

The word Gacaca refers to the small patch of grass where a community would traditionally meet to discuss questions that worried that community. People of integrity in the village would facilitate a discussion that any member of the community could take part in. Once everyone had spoken, the elders in the community would reach a decision about how the problem would be solved. In this way, Gacaca acted as a traditional court. Gacaca courts were revived in Rwandan society as a way to process the millions of cases that arose following the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.

Contemporary Gacaca draws inspiration from the traditional model by replicating a local community-based justice system with the aim of restoring the social fabric of society. In total, 1,958,634 genocide related cases were tried through Gacaca. The courts finished their work in June 2012.

The overall aim of the programme was the promotion of social cohesion, positive values such as pluralism and personal responsibility, empathy, critical thinking and action in order to build a more peaceful society in Rwanda.

Building on the expertise of each partner organisation, the Rwanda Peace Education Programme was a multi-faceted effort with a variety of components, including a travelling Peace Exhibition, debates in high schools and universities, teacher training, youth leadership capacity-strengthening, advocacy, radio drama production, and capacity-building support to the staff of the Kigali Genocide Memorial and the Genocide Archives of Rwanda.

The Aegis Trust has developed a successful model for peace education in Rwanda, supporting tens of thousands of young people across the country with the knowledge and skills to overcome the legacy of  genocide.

From 2016 Aegis Rwanda’s Education for Sustainable Peace in Rwanda (ESPR) programme supported the curriculum change, embedding peace and values education in the classroom, while strengthening the skills of teachers through Peace Schools. A major shift of the new competency based curriculum is the emphasis on skills: critical thinking, empathy, personal responsibility and trust are strengthened through interactive teaching methods. This 3-year programme focused on Teachers and Parents as educators as well as Youth.