Episode 1.
Producers:
Bianca Roberts and Ciaran OMahony
Narrator:
Bianca Roberts
With thanks to Felicite Rwemarika, Grace Nyinawumuntu and Professor Holly Thorpe
Music:
Aftershine, by Tea Time https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-513053-after-shine
A Spark Inside, by Tea Time https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-527213-a-spark-inside,
Gushayaya, by Germain92 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0,
This week, we spoke to Felicite Rwemarika, a former refugee who started Rwanda's first women's football program to help them overcome the trauma of genocide and pursue gender equality. This social enterprise began after Rwemarika opened a salon in Kigali, where she witnessed the shocking trauma carried by female survivors of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. She soon realised that the salon was a place where women could express their grief and relate to each other’s suffering, a realisation that bred a determination to facilitate this healing on a larger scale, through football.
Subsequent interviews with Grace Nyinawumuntu - Rwanda's first ever female professional football referee and coach - and Professor Holly Thorpe, illustrate the significant impact of this program.
Links
Shattered lives: Sexual violence during the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath - https://www.hrw.org/report/1996/09/24/shattered-lives/sexual-violence-during-rwandan-genocide-and-its-aftermath
Rwanda 25 years on, solidarity with victims - https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/04/rwanda-25-years-solidarity-victims
University of Minnesota, Holocaust and Genocide Studies page - https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/rwanda
Women After the Rwandan Genocide: Making the Most of Survival - https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=cisr-journal
"Marked for death", rape survivors living with HIV/AIDS in Rwanda - https://www.refworld.org/docid/4129fd524.html
For more information about AKWOS
https://akwosrwanda.org/