Peacedu Workshop  About Genocide Prevention and the Holocaust

Peace Education Initiative Rwanda focuses on teaching young Rwandans human rights, genocide studies, peace education and tolerance to build a peaceful future. It aims at helping to build a society that understands the consequences of genocide and Holocaust by focusing on preventing man's inhumanity to man. It believes that peace education and teaching youth how to prevent genocide and mass atrocities are crucial in making a brighter future. Providing human rights and Holocaust education to teachers and the young generation as well as highlighting similarities between the 1994 Genocide and Holocaust instills in them the spirit of preventing genocide and holocaust completely.  Therefore, on September 15, 2018, Peace Education Initiative Rwanda conducted a workshop about The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Genocide prevention and Holocaust education. The workshop was held in Groupe Scholaire Rugando, and 1000 students and their teachers from GS Rugando, IFAK, and APADE in Kigali City attended the workshop.

 Students and their teachers understood how genocide occurs and learned to recognize signs that could lead to genocide so as to stop it before it happens. Teachers acquired knowledge that they will pass to their students to avoid genocide ideology in the young generation.

Furthermore, students and teachers understood elements of traditional and religious Jewish culture common in Europe before the Holocaust. They recognized the diversity of Jewish life across Europe and discussed the historical role of Anti-Semitism.

Moreover, students and teachers acquired knowledge, skills, and develop attitudes that will help them to prevent the occurrence of conflict, resolve them successfully, and create a peaceful environment. They learned to cover values of nonviolence and social justice such as respect for human rights, freedom, trust, equality, responsibility, and solidarity.

Human rights are already established; people need to know them and exercise them for their own good and betterment of their colleagues because a person knows that every human being has rights to live, there will be no more murder. Therefore, students and teachers were told about human rights. They understood that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person. They also learned that no one shall be held in slavery, subjected to torture, and so on (United Nations, n.d.).

After all, students and teachers understood holocaust and genocide as well as their impacts on individuals and nations.  They made decisions to what they learned from the workshops with others who did not get the chance to attend. They understood their roles in making a better future; full of peace, wealth, and respect for human rights.