A group of artists, including authors, poets, actors, writers, and painters have joined efforts in composing both written and recorded poems for the commemoration week. The youngsters hatched this plan as one of the channels to heal others, themselves, and show comfort to Rwandans who lost their loved ones. “We are working on this as ‘Nyomora’, an organisation that aims at tackling mental issues, especially among young people but also others. We had a lot of short poems but we wanted to use some in this commemoration week, so we filmed only some of them and we reserved others for upcoming commemoration projects,” stresses Roger Manzi, poet. So far, the recorded poems were uploaded to the ‘Nyomora’ YouTube channel five days ago. The youngsters chose to use poetry as a means that brings them together and also a way to reach large audiences, considering the poems are in three languages, French, Kinyarwanda, and English. The poems portray hope for the young generation, keeping the memories of the innocent souls lost in the Genocide against the Tutsi, and stressing that the young generation is aware of what happened even though they were born after the Genocide, thus have the power and capability to walk in the footsteps of their parents and pave a way for the next generation. The artists believe that they should spread the message of remembering, uniting, and renewing using their platform so that such terror never happens again in Rwanda or anywhere else in the world, but also curb the genocide ideology. Through the dark history, the youngsters note that they gain strength, learn to heal, and stay alert to avoid such horror in the future. The poems also highlight the heroism and sacrifice of the liberators who acted as good examples, since they brought the country from darkness to light. The artists urge fellow youth to fight against hatred, the roots of genocide, and eradicate conflicts, and spread hope, and love. Nyomora is made up of 12 artists who are devoted to using their talents in providing restoration, encouragement, and remedies, not only to themselves, but to other people as well. According to the artists, creating the poems took them a week as writing isn’t new to them, though they sought guidance, wherever necessary.
