Rwanda Holiday Camps 2010 - Testimony

Holiday camp attendee Fred Kayitare is helping his parents forgive.

Holiday camps were organised for students in primary schools in Gatsibo, Nyamagabe and Nyamata districts and brought together 800 students. The training topics included:

1. To promote the culture of peace and objective judgement
2. The rights of the child in the Rwandan society
3. The plan of God for young children
4. To help students to attain their dreams for tomorrow (building a tree of hope)

The students appreciated the training they received and they all made a deliberate decision to continue to be agents of reconciliation in the community. The main message from the training was to promote the culture of peace wherever they are and to avoid conflicts and by all possible means try to attain their vision for the future.

The following testimony comes from Fred Kayitare, a student at Nyamagabe primary school in level 5:

“I have a very dear friend of mine, but my parents have always tried to stop me from relating with him. My mother told me that his parents are killers and commanded me to put an end to my friendship with their son. That was so sad for me to hear and I told my mother that the boy was not responsible for the mistakes of his parents, given that he was not even born when the genocide took place. Unfortunately, my mother did not want to listen and instead she decided to keep beating me up every time she found me with my friend. I was so lucky to be together at the holiday camp since we got ample time to share more about our problem. I assured him that I’m committed to continuing our friendship, because in my judgement I didn’t see any reason for us not being friends. He too assured me that he would continue to be my friend. Since our parents were not among the parents' representatives that were trained on reconciliation, we decided that we would request one of our trained teachers who is also a parent to help us facilitate the reunification of our families. We trust that through these efforts and the efforts of the parents who have started reaching other parents with the training on reconciliation and healing, our families will eventually be unified.”