Next Wednesday, on the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Amahoro Stadium will host the first ever Rwanda and Japan Peace Exhibition, to reflect on the tragedy of war and the hope of rebuilding in its aftermath.

Marie Louise Kambenga, an organiser of the event and chairman of the NGO Think About Education in Rwanda, said that Japan and Rwanda share a similar history of both devastation and reconstruction.

Kambenga, a Rwandan citizen, has lived in Japan for many years. She said she was shocked to learn about the bombings, but also impressed by the way that Japan had redeveloped afterwards. Kambenga explained that hosting the event twenty years after the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda can help the country on its path to restoration.

"In Rwanda we experienced (the) tragedy of genocide but sometimes we don’t really sit down and think about the peace we have and how valuable it is, so this event is really to put us together and think about this by learning from what happened in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” said Kambenga.

In August 1945, in retaliation for an attack at Pearl Harbor naval base by Japanese Kamikaze pilots, the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan; one onto Hiroshima, on August 6, and another onto Nagasaki on August 9, killing around 200,000 people.

Many more died afterwards because of the effects, increasing the total amount of victims to around 450,000, according to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

"These tragedies are one of the most epoch making events of the modern history in Japan as well as the world,” said Takahiro Moriya, Chief Representative at JICA-Rwanda.

JICA volunteers have held over 100 of these exhibitions in over 50 countries during the past 10 years. Moriya said that their aim is to prevent future nuclear wars from happening.

The interactive exhibition, running from August 6-10, will teach participants about the bombings and reconstruction by using books, posters and movies.  There will also be panel discussions where participants will get to hear from survivors of the nuclear bombings as well as the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. The exhibition will end with a peace concert on August 15, featuring Mani Martin and Kesho Band.

Shunsuke Naito, a volunteer from Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) who is helping to organise the event, said he learned that Rwandan and Japanese people shared similar experiences through one of his Rwandan friends when they started discussing both country’s histories.

"We could feel the same thing, the sadness and also never again (to such tragedies),” said Naito. "We have dreams, we want to make a better country, and that’s why we can share with each other those histories.”