A mini-visit to Rwanda

     I’d never met anyone from Rwanda before, and the three young people I met yesterday could not have been better ambassadors.
     They were all orphans – as so many young people in Rwanda are, owing to the 1994 genocide – but they were far from without a family.
     The three are students at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, a school in eastern Rwanda that takes the most vulnerable youth from throughout the country, educates them through four years of high school and prepares them to enter the world with confidence and skill.
     But it is far from just a school. “It’s a family,” all three said, as they visited with students in an advanced history class at Woburn Memorial High School in Massachusetts. All students are assigned to a house with 15 other students and a “mother” who does what any mother does – look after them, encourage them and shepherd them into life.
      The three shared stories with the kids in the Woburn history class, including how they, too, are barred from having cell phones in class. But unlike the Woburn kids, who get a warning, then their cell phone taken away for a day if they’re caught using a phone in class, the Rwandan students said peers are the ones who sit down with a student who uses a cell phone in class. And rather than inflict punishment, the peers remind the student of what educational opportunities he or she has missed while chatting on the phone instead of participating in classroom activities.
     And so it went.
     At the end of the period, I asked some of the American kids if there was anything they envied about the Rwandans’ life. Turned out there was plenty. Their close-knit community. Their discipline. Their desire to change and improve their country.
     And isn’t that the point about meeting inter-cultural exchange – sharing what we can learn from each other.
     The Rwandans also performed a little song and dance in class. Here’s a video I hope you’ll enjoy.