COVER STORY

Go tell, Rwanda

Learning hard truths from African genocide

Mass murder in Rwanda. The slaughter of 800,000 human beings as if they were animals. The extermination of children at schools, and of other ordinary Rwandan Tutsi citizens. All this in just 100 horrific days during the year of 1994.

Like the Holocaust, the wiping out of these groups of people was carefully planned and supported by the ruling government, in this case that of the Hutu.

Last summer, students from TechBoston Academy in Dorchester and suburban youth from Hudson traveled to Rwanda to meet high school students from that African nation.

With teens getting to know about the massive graves and memorial sites of where the disaster took place, they got a firsthand look at what can bring a community together and what can tear a community apart -- the theme of the whole experience emphasized by the Brookline-based group, Facing History and Ourselves, that sponsored the program.

The cultural exchange continued in March, when the students from Rwanda came to cities in the US, including Boston, and learned about the struggles Americans faced during the civil rights movement.

History has shown that the human race is a cruel one, at times. We know of the wars, and of the mass killings. But, what if instead of letting history repeat itself, we took time out to see what made people think the way they do?

But that wasn’t all that the TechBoston Academy students ascertained during their trip to Rwanda. Along with finding out about the gruesome history of the African country, they also found out things they never realized about themselves.

“It showed me material things don’t matter, it is how you take advantage of it and utilize it,” said Dominique Johnson, 17, of TechBoston, during a March interview in Brookline. “It humbled me as a person and opened my eyes to new things.”

While in Rwanda, the Boston teens were able to visit the Murambi Genocide Memorial. Through this experience, they became aware of how hatred and misunderstanding of a different ethnic group can lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

“It gives me a better understanding of diversity,” Johnson said.

Through meeting the American students, teen Charles Tuyiringire from the College Christ Roi school in Rwanda said he now knows what a more stable environment feels like.

“Before,” he said, “I did not know which is a good community, and which is a bad community.”

At the March get-together, teens talked about how it is important to become involved in the events around them.

“Kids need to be more engaged in what’s going on in the world and have a better understanding of their own history,” said Johnson.

For 18-year-old Alex Cruz of TechBoston, the journey to Africa put him in a whole new place.

“It changed where I want to go and what I want to do,” he said, “which is help the world.”

painting by Princess Morris // Artists for Humanity