First year students from the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), on Wednesday visited the Genocide memorial site at Gisozi, in an effort to familiarise themselves with the country’s history.

"This was done in order to uproot the Genocide ideology from students admitted to KIST this year 2009,” Andrew Mpamo, Dean of students said.

He added that the institute’s administration decided to send all first year students to visit memorial sites to expose them to what happened during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi’s, which will help the draw their own strategies of fighting it.

Over 350 students from different departments attended and according to Mpamo, this is one of the tools employed by KIST to fight the genocide ideology.

He added: "we selected first year students to visit the Genocide memorial centre in order to complement what they have learnt during their solidarity camp.”

"Most of the students were young during the Genocide and others were out of the country, coming here therefore exposes them to reality,” he said.

Mpamo revealed that all students admitted at KIST have to undergo this every year.

Student representative Aimable Sibomana said that they were going to put more efforts in highlighting the solutions to the problems brought by the Genocide.

The students contributed Rwf 90,000 to the centre.

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