WESTERN PROVINCE

KIBUYE — Youth in Kibuye have organised drama series in different schools geared towards educating people about heroes.

At ETO Kibuye, the play featured three youths; two acting as rich men who achieved wealth and prestige through theft, with their colleague who got it through polishing shoes, a rather simple job as far as they were concerned.

As the play unfolds, the thieves got imprisoned while the shoe shiner succeeded in his job and continued paying taxes to the government.

Residents who talked to The New Times after watching the plays hold different views about heroism.

"A hero is one who works hard towards development of the country and his neighbours," Fauste Mukiza said after watching the play.

At St Mary’s College, plays centered on how the 1994 Genocide was stopped by heroes. To most people heroes are those who stopped the Genocide.

"Intwari [heroes] are those people who sacrificed their lives to stop the Genocide in Rwanda, like Rwigyema," Mukiza said after watching second series, without sensing that he was contradicting his first view.

"Anyone can be a hero through working for it," says Bernard Kalisa.

Citing communal building of houses for Rwandan returnees, he says when a person works hard especially in community work like Umuganda then he qualifies to be called a hero.

"If we help fellow citizens resettle for instance in Rutsiro, it’s an act of heroism," he says.

To Beath Umutoni a hero is one who stands against genocide ideology. "In case one fights ethnic divisions sown by colonialists, then he is a hero," she says.

Umutoni adds that adhering to government programs like family planning, HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, qualifies one to be called a hero.

Ends