Life leading to the stage

Actress Jackline Umubyeyi tells STEPHEN TUMUSIIME her story Jackline Umubyeyi was born in 1968, in a remote area of Gikongoro in the now southern province to the family of Rwihimba Celestine and Kamwezi Gorette. Jackline was raised by both her parents who “loved her to the extreme”. Jackline received her basic education from Kibuye in a school known as Birambo where she completed her secondary school from. She finished her secondary in 1989 and worked as a primary teacher until 1994. Jackline loved teaching but she says she couldn’t contiue after the Genocide. “I faced a lot of challenges that were hard to bear. I couldn’t continue teaching as I was a bit traumatized,” reveals Jackline. Umubyeyi lost both her parents in 1994. She was married with had two Children. The worst of it all, is that her husband died just after the Genocide, leaving her to look after the Children and her little sisters. She later worked with an NGO which aimed at returning the victims of Genocide to normal life. Jackline worked with Care Austria, and was in charge of taking care of children who were victims of the Genocide. Later she worked with rural development association, working with women empowerment program from 1997 to 1998. Jackline returned to teaching in 1999 until 2001, when she decided to go back to School. She joined an association that catered for Genocide survivors known as FALG. The organisation paid her tuition fee.Jackline struggled to bring up two children while studying. She says that with God’s grace she managed to do both things at once.Jackline has long been interested in drama. At Care she was responsible for children entertainment and would devise plays for them to act in. However, she knew she would one day act herself and knew that it would be in something big. She was not wrong. She was an actor in the making as she puts it, but had always taken the responsibilities of advising or designing the actors but not acting. Having earned something of a reputation for doing just that, she was approached to try for ‘The Monument’ as she suited the role of the female part. Jackline finished her education from the National University of Rwanda, specialising in clinical psychology, now she is working with Centre of Arts at NUR. Her children both go to school where her first born Mahirwe Patric is in senior three and her daughter Mulisa Liza in senior one. Jackline hopes to be a great artist, specialising in drama shows. She appeals to whoever has a talent to develop it for it can be of great importance. Ends