Central African Republic: leveraging cultural week for peacebuilding

During a Bangui cultural week peace education workshop with the Aegis Trust Central African schoolchildren perform a sketch about the need for orphans to go to school

Cultural Week in the Central African Republic provided the Aegis Trust’s peacebuilding team in Bangui with an  opportunity to leverage engagement in cultural activities to deliver peace and values education, formally and informally. Between February 13th and 18th, the team delivered three peacebuilding programmes. In the first, hundreds of community leaders took part in a […]

Kim Simon: a legacy of testimony and learning

Kim Simon at an IWitness training session with Aegis Trust educators at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, 2013

Kim Simon – formerly Managing Director of the USC Shoah Foundation – has passed away following a battle with Multiple System Atrophy, a rare degenerative disease. “We are heartbroken that Kim Simon is no longer with us,” says Aegis CEO Dr James Smith. “Kim was a dedicated and brilliant partner and colleague of the Aegis […]

Young people acquire skills and knowledge on Peace and Values Education

Aegis Trust Youth Champions training at the Kigali Genocide Memorial February 2023

A three-day Youth Champions workshop on Peace and Values Education was held by Aegis at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in the first week of February, bringing together 25 young people from Kigali and its surroundings. They acquired knowledge about the path to violence, the path to peace, advocacy, being an upstander, leadership, project development, gender […]

BAFTA-nominated film inspired by Kigali Genocide Memorial

L-R Aegis CEO Dr James Smith with filmmaker Jo Ingabire and High Commissioner HE Johnston Busingye at the London premiere of BAFTA-nominated short BAZIGAGA, 10 February 2023

Jo Ingabire’s BAFTA-nominated short BAZIGAGA is a fictional drama about a pastor and his daughter seeking refuge with a traditional healer during the Genocide against the Tutsi, which Jo herself survived as a young child. Bazigaga, the eponymous heroine, keeps the Interahamwe militia from her door by playing on their superstitions that she may be […]

Central African Republic: building peace amid conflict

Aegis Trust peace education workshop in Bangui, Central African Republic, January 2023

“Peace is really important, isn’t it? If there’s no peace, we can’t come to school. That’s why the team from Aegis came to educate us.” It’s a hot day in late January as the Principal of Lycée Barthélémy Boganda, a school in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, addresses 2,000 students about to take […]

Holocaust Memorial Day 2023 at the Kigali Genocide Memorial

Holocaust Memorial Day 2023 at the Kigali Genocide Memorial

Today, on the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, dignitaries and survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi gathered at the Kigali Genocide Memorial to commemorate the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, to honour all victims of Nazi persecution, and to remember all whose lives have been destroyed through genocide and identity-based […]

A conversation with Holocaust survivor Emil Fish at the Kigali Genocide Memorial

A Conversation with Emil Fish at the Kigali Genocide Memorial

On the eve of International Holocaust Memorial Day, Rwandan students gathered at the Kigali Genocide Memorial to take part in a conversation with Holocaust survivor Emil Fish, listening to his testimony and asking questions about his experience (click here to watch the full conversation). Emil was welcomed by Dr James Smith, founder and Chief Executive […]

Rwanda: national dialogue on post-genocide identity

National Research Based Dialogue at the Kigali Genocide Memorial January 2023

On 17 January, Aegis hosted Rwanda’s first national research-based dialogue at the Kigali Genocide Memorial on the theme ‘Post-genocide identity perspectives in Rwanda’. Staged as part of the Action for Sustainable Peace, Inclusion, Rights & Equality (ASPIRE) programme, the dialogue enabled researchers who are studying peacebuilding and genocide prevention to share their evidence-based findings and […]

Rwandan High Commissioner visits UK birthplace of Aegis Trust

Rwandan High Commissioner Johnston Busingye with Aegis Trust founder and CEO Dr James Smith at the UK National Holocaust Centre - the birthplace of Aegis

Rwanda’s High Commissioner to the UK, Johnston Busingye last week visited the UK National Holocaust Centre – birthplace of the Aegis Trust, which collaborated with Rwandan authorities to establish the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the final resting-place for 250,000 victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, in 2004. Aegis Trust continues to run the Memorial […]