After a huge turn up at Our Past event, on April 9, at Nyanza Genocide Memorial Center, Kicukiro, organisers are preparing to take the event to Qatar. Our Past is an initiative that aims to educate young people about the Genocide and to inspire them to rebuild the country through poetry, musical performances, drama, dance, theatre, and workshops with leaders. Christian Intwari Gasana, founder of the initiative told The New Times that the event’s growing audience of young people is a good indicator of the impact of their work and an inspiration to take it to the international community. “Kwibuka 30 should be a reminder that everything is possible under great leadership and what we don’t want to see happen in our country again. This year we are going to start our first Kwibuka event in partnership with the embassy in Qatar, we are taking Our Past to Qatar. The same way we feel like the young people need to learn about our past is the same way we need to teach the international community about what our country went through,” he said. Also read: How Our Past unfolded Initiated in 2012, organisers had to shift its venue from the amphitheater at Kigali Genocide Memorial to Nyanza Genocide Memorial Center to accommodate its large audience that has grown from 2,700 to 5,000. “The former venue at the Kigali Genocide Memorial became small and we thought that moving to a new venue would be bigger but this (the turn up) also shows you how thirsty young people are about learning the past and how much we need to invest in resources to educate young people about our past so that we can be able to prevent the Genocide from ever happening again,” Intwari added.
