for the love
of humanity
Powerful lessons from the extraordinary women of Rwanda.
In 1995, 50 brave women started a movement that would transform their land of 1,000 hills in Rwanda and help bring it out of the dark shadow that had enveloped it for an excruciating 100 days in 1994.
They would come to be known as AVEGA Agahozo (Association of Genocide Widows). From April to July of 1994, 1,000,000 souls were killed in the most brutal way imaginable during the genocide against the Tutsi. These extraordinary women lost the majority of their immediate and extended families, endured unspeakable acts of violence and were left to pick up the pieces of a country that was completely devastated.
The creation of Avega took root from the awareness that "unity makes strength," and that only by combining their efforts and organizing themselves, could these widows successfully deal with their common challenges and resolve them because there was no one left to help them.
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