Fifth Third Curiosity article: The Awakening, 2015

The Awakening: Before Frederick Ndabaramiye Could Decide on an Answer, He had to Choose a Question.

For people confronted with sudden, severe, and completely unexpected disabilities, there are two operative questions: What can I do? What can’t I do?

When you’ve lost both your hands to the machete-wielding rebels who hijacked your bus because you refused their demand that you kill your fellow passengers, you could certainly be forgiven for focusing on the latter. But when you consider the alternative — they killed everyone else on the bus, anyway — perhaps you look instead for the reasons why you survived, and what you can accomplish in the world now that you have… Read full article

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Genocide

A census carried out by the Rwandan ministry of local government in 2002 indicated that a total of 1,074,017 people were killed in 100 days during the 1994 genocide. This census details names of the dead, dwelling places, age, and how they were killed.
Thousands more were maimed and mutilated and rebel attacks continued for few years after 1994 genocide. More than 300,000 children were separated from their families or orphaned. Rwanda, a small, landlocked nation in Central Africa, was one of the poorest and most underdeveloped nations in the world just after genocide.

In the new Rwanda Economic Update (REU), the World Bank projects an economic growth rate of 7.4% in 2015 and 7.6% in 2016. With the projected growth rates, the World Bank projects Rwanda’s poverty rate to decline from 63% in 2011 to 54% in 2016, thus moving approximately one million people above the poverty rate. Rwanda’s growth rate recovered from 4.7% in 2013, the lowest growth since 2003, to 7.0% in 2014, the report says.

The genocide dramatically impacted Rwanda’s educational system. Almost one-third of primary schools were destroyed and over 3,000 teachers lost. Since 1994 there have been extensive governmental and international efforts to rebuild the country and its education system.

This was critical to the development of the country and its future economic survival but the challenges remained overwhelming and opportunities were extremely limited. According to a survey conducted by the United Nations just after 1994 genocide, less than 60% of the population age six and over had a primary education, 3.9 percent a secondary school education and only 2 percent a college education.
The level of education one has is often seen as a form of capital accumulation which helps in countries’ development. In Rwanda, the government implemented policies over the years to ensure there is a high literacy rate among the population. As of 2004-2008, 77% of males and females are literate, which is a relatively high percentage, however, those who continue into secondary schooling stands at a low 31%.

The number of Rwandans admitted into schools has increased between 2001 to 2008, but the facilities and resources have not increased at the same rate. Enrollment in primary school almost doubled over the decade, with an average annual growth rate of 5.4 percent between 1998 and 2009, to reach almost 2.2 million students in 2008.