IA&A #J1Alum and genocide survivor Hyppolite Ntigurirwa recently finished a 100-day walk across Rwanda to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Genocide Against the Tutsi. His “Be The Peace Walk” was a performance that invited individuals from around the world to spread messages of love and peace. As Hyppolite explained, “It is a performance of remembrance and resilience from brutality and fatalities towards a more peaceful future.”
Hyppolite is a performing artist, researcher, and activist whose work focuses on ending the intergenerational transmission of hate. In 2016, he participated in IA&A’s Exchange Visitor Program, completing an artist-in-residence program with Arts Connect International, an organization that cultivates and connects leaders in the arts field committed to cultural and social inclusion. Since then, he has continued to build peace through art and engagement. His current work focuses on using theater as a tool for healing, reconciliation, and peacebuilding in post-conflict communities both in Rwanda and abroad.
Hyppolite isn’t one to simply ask for change, and he hopes to inspire others to reject the complacency in non-action. The #BeThePeaceWalk started in his home village of Mibilizi on April 15 and ended in Kigali on July 25. At least twice a day, Hyppolite stopped to talk to those around him about their responsibility to seek peace. “What I experienced I never want any child to experience. That is what I have been telling the communities. The peace we want to leave for our children and the generations to come is the peace we have to work for today,” he said in an interview with The New Times. Through this walk and his other peace activism he honors the memories of his loved ones and all victims of the genocide.