Patrick Gashugi Shimirwa
Age: 5
Favourite sport: Riding bicycle
Favourite food: chips, meat and eggs
Best friend: Alliane, his sister
Behaviour: A quiet, well behaved boy
Cause of death: hacked by machete
I was sent to the Genocide Memorial Museum by a guy I’d met the night before at dinner, a man by the name of Laurent. He told me that if I was to understand anything about Rwanda, I’d have to visit the museum.
So I did.
And there, in the entry foyer, was a life-sized photo of Patrick, and the caption you just read. The name looked familiar. The man who’d sent me here, Laurent – his surname was Gashugi.
This boy was his son.
Hacked to death by a machete at the age of 5.
One of 800,000 victims of Rwanda’s genocide in 1994 – a conflict that I remember seeing on the news growing up.
I was given purpose to share this story, having recently spoken at the OxFID conference on development in crisis and conflict. I knew it was the story that I wanted to open with, something that would grab people at 10am on a Sunday. I wanted to make the point that conflict is about people, and its effects are intensely personal. It’s a lot more than statistics and numbers and dry journal articles about ‘building effective institutions in fragile and post-conflict states.’
But I wasn’t so sure where I’d go after that. I wanted to link back to talking about how poverty and conflict were linked, and how if we were to prevent conflict, then part of our response would need to include ensuring that all people, wherever they live, had the chance to pursue their dreams.
Pondering this on the train, I opened up a book that one of our presenters had given to me to read the week before. Called Three Cups of Tea, it recounts the journey of Greg Mortenson, an American who got lost on the way down from an attempted summit of K2 in Pakistan, was taken in by a remote mountain village to recover, and in return promised to return to build a school as a gesture of thanks.
I was keen to read it because it came recommended by an unlikely source. The week before I had been chatting to a Conservative MP who had just returned from a week in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had just finished reading the book, and was brimming with enthusiasm with the realisation that well-targeted aid could work, especially in conflict zones like the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.
And, reading it on the train, I could see why. Greg’s journey – with all its ups and downs – was one of unsuspecting humility, one that placed the hopes and dreams of the people he met at the centre of his mission. It’s a journey that didn’t always come naturally or easily to Greg, his mis-steps, close calls and frustrated reflections demonstrating just how hard it can be to turn good intentions into good outcomes. And, it’s a journey that makes human the daily struggles and triumphs of people who love, learn, argue and aspire just like us – but who we usually only ever hear about as fleeting references to civilian casualties following drone strikes or terrorist attacks.
Three Cups of Tea offers us the chance to learn some of Greg’s lessons without having to spend a decade in Pakistan. Through it, we have the chance to see the importance of really listening to the people we’re looking to support, recognizing that they understand the barriers and opportunities in their community better than we could ever hope. It gives us an opportunity to see the power of investing in girls’ education first-hand, seeing the transformation that it sparks not just in individuals, but in whole communities.
And, coming back to the original thread of the post, Three Cups of Tea gives us the chance to see that ultimately, the best thing we can do to prevent conflict and fight extremism is to support people, and especially girls, to pursue their dreams.
You can buy Three Cups of Tea online, or hire it from your local library.
You can support Greg’s work at www.ikat.org... and if you want to learn more about aid or other topics, check out the info bank here.
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