The UALR Rwandan Students Association will again host a Walk to Remember to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda on Tuesday, April 7.
The walk is an annual worldwide event to raise awareness of the slaughter that was inflicted on the Tutsi in 1994 where some 800,000 people were killed in just 100 days.
The event starts at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in front of UALR’s Ottenheimer Library with a minute of silence to remember the lives that were taken during the genocide.
Afterwards, students will walk through campus towards the Engineering Information and Technology building before returning to the library.
Following the walk, the Rwandan Students Association will hold a 6 p.m. documentary film screening about the journey to forgiveness the Rwandans are experiencing as the killers and the survivors learn to live together again.
The film will be at 6 p.m. in Ledbetter Hall, Room C, of the Donaghey Student Center.
Walk to Remember activities are hosted throughout four continents, in 10 countries, and in over 20 locations with over 25,000 participants to-date.
The UALR Rwandan Students Organization organizes the annual event. The group consists mostly of Rwandan undergraduate students.
“The members of the association are like family to one another,” said Junior Cerise Inganji, the organization’s president.
“It feels good to know that there are other Rwandans on campus that we can directly relate to, especially in this period of national grief.”
The Walk to Remember started in Rwanda in 2009 by a youth organization as a platform to educate youth about the genocide in an effort to ensure such a tragedy may never happen again.