Teachers can play a key role in documenting the history of the genocide against the Tutsi, just like some have done with the Jewish holocaust, experts have said. ALSO READ: Teachers fear teaching genocide subject in class, Bizimana says This week, the Educators Institute for Human Rights (EIHR), an international organisation that creates partnerships among educators around the world to teach the history of conflict and prevention strategies to build sustainable peace, conducted a training workshop with teachers from various parts of Rwanda to equip them with some knowledge about the Jewish holocaust. ALSO READ: Senators to assess Genocide history teaching in schools The organisation takes lessons from the Holocaust, the genocide against the Tutsi, the Killing Fields of Cambodia and other historic violations of human rights. It partners with teachers to teach high and middle school students how conflicts evolve, how justice is served and, most importantly, how future conflicts can be prevented through education and understanding. During the training, Ron Adam, the Ambassador of Israel to Rwanda, told the teachers that there are many stories to tell in regards to the genocide, yet they have not been told yet. “Every football field, every orphanage and so on......has a story,” he noted. Speaking in an interview with the media, Kate English, EIHR’s Executive Director, said: “I think that teachers and students have one of the most important roles to play. They are the ones who create the narrative that becomes the national understanding,” she said, giving an example of Salvaged Pages, a book written by American author Alexandra Zapruder, containing a collection of 15 diaries of young writers who lived during the Holocaust. “Here in Rwanda we would love to see students engage in the same way, helping in defining the history and in understanding how we can take meaning, create peace, reconciliation and strength out of understanding what happened in the past,” she noted. Ambassador Adam also hinted at the fact that sharing the true stories about the Genocide and the Holocaust is a tool for fighting hate. “I always say that if you share your story, there will be less denial and less hatred. People should write and read about the Holocaust and Genocide,” he noted. Venant Nzamurambaho, a teacher from Gisagara district, said some teachers face challenges when it comes to teaching genocide-related topics to their students, due to the gravity of such history. Some teachers said they do not have enough time to teach about the genocide in class, because the time for teaching history was reduced to two hours a week.
