IGIHE

Category: People

  • Her husband killed Tutsi, she hid and saved one

    Nyirabazungu 55, now a resident of Ntarama Sector of Bugesera District, was married to Servilien Kambari who was the leader ‘Conseiller’ of former Kibungo Sector in current Bugesera District.

    Kambari used a gun to kill many Tutsi including those who had fled to Ntarama Catholic Church where they took refuge believing killers would not dare to kill people in the ‘house of God.”

    Kambari later died in the attacks the former RPA (Rwanda Patriotic Army) Inkotanyi soldiers carried out to liberate Bugesera District and surrounding areas to protect and save victims who were being killed in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi.

    Talking to IGIHE, Nyirabazungu, said she hid one Celestin Mugabe who then was 20 years old.

    “It was on Sunday when other people had gone to pray and from churches they came back saying killings had started,” Nyirabazungu recounts.

    “At around 3 PM, Celestin Mugabe came to my house carrying a bag and asked my help as his fellow Tutsi were being killed. I put him in my house. His mother and his siblings went to hide in the swamp where I took them food in the evening,” she says.

    Nyirabazungu adds that she kept hiding Mugabe and his two other younger brothers who came later into his house.

    While Nyirabazungu was hiding Mugabe, her husband Servilien Kambari woke up every day and went to Ntarama to kill Tutsi.

    “I kept feeding Mugabe’s parents from neighboring homes where they hid. I told my children to keep it as a secret that Mugabe was hiding at our house. Every day, Interahamwe militias came to my house looking for the young boy I hid but my children and I kept denying his presence at our house,” Nyirabazungu adds.

    Nyirabazungu says that Mugabe’s parents later decided to flee to Ntarama Church where they believed their lives would be saved but they were killed on the way.

    Few days later, Mugabe also left Nyirabazungu’s house as killers kept looking for him but fortunately survived.

    “On my heart, I always feel the pride to have saved somebody’s life during the genocide. It pains that my husband killed several others. Now Mugabe is alive and he is a father to four children,” Nyirabazungu says adding that “people should be generous and truthful.”

  • The 7 Toxic Personalities That Are Destroying Your Success

    Some personalities are positive and others are potentially harmful–and an important element of developing self-awareness is knowing which personas to nurture and which to neglect.

    Here are seven of the most common personalities that are destroying your success. Pay attention because they are toxic and harmful.

    {{1. The ambivalent persona:
    }}

    If you live in a frequent state of conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings toward people and experiences, learn to resolve them internally. Even if it comes from being tuned in to subtleties, ambivalence makes you come across as wavering and uncertain. Foster instead a persona that is thoughtful but decisive.

    {{2. The negative persona:
    }}

    Negativity leads almost inevitably to defeatist thinking and cynicism. Train yourself to think in positive ways instead of viewing everything from a pessimistic mindset. Look for win-win solutions.

    {{3. The procrastinator persona:
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    People like to joke about procrastination, but putting off or delaying something that requires immediate attention can be incredibly damaging. It can cause you to miss deadlines, since you don’t have any pad for things to go wrong. And even if you manage to complete the task on time it’s not likely to be your best work. If procrastination is an issue for you, break projects down into smaller tasks and hold yourself to a schedule.

    {{4. The jealous persona:
    }}

    People get jealous when they feel that someone else has something that should be theirs; they often blame others around them rather than recognizing their own emotions. Envy is harmful enough that it’s one of the seven deadly sins–it robs you of any contentment or joy in the things you’ve accomplished and earned, focusing all your energy instead on what you lack.

    {{5. The entitled persona:
    }}

    When you come to believe that you deserve special privileges or treatment, that the rules shouldn’t apply to you, or that you are above other people, you do set yourself apart–just not in the way that you intended. The primary effect is that it becomes nearly impossible to develop the relationships that are critical to success.

    {{6. The victim persona:
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    At the core of victimhood is refusing to accept your part in causing a problem and being unable to accept responsibility–instead blaming others or just refusing to acknowledge the problem. Legitimate success requires a sense of personal responsibility and accountability.

    {{7. The perfectionist persona:
    }}

    Each one of us has imperfections, whether we accept them or not. Seeking perfection in ourselves and others is destructive. It’s far healthier and more beneficial to admit to our flaws and bring them into the light rather than rendering the false front of a supposedly perfect life.

    {{8. The narcissist persona:
    }}

    If you believe that you deserve success and you’re willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure that that it happens, even at the expense of others, if you view other people as competition or threats and tend to look out only for yourself, your narcissistic tendencies are alienating the people around you. Come down to the level of reality and realize that you’re no better or worse than anyone around you. Then you can relate to others and build relationships.

    There are plenty of other possible personas, positive and negative. Devote some time to thinking about your own personas and how you should be dealing with them. When you successfully manage your tendencies, you’ll never find yourself standing in the way of your own success. Be intentional and be successful.

    {{With Inc.}}

  • Mutuyimana laid to rest

    With much sorrow at Rusororo cemetery, family and football fraternity paid their respects to the late goalkeeper.

    His burial ceremony was preceded by prayers at Regina Pacis Remera

    Rayon Sport president, Chance Denis Gacinya promised continued support to the family of Mutuyimana. He said that every 12nd September, they will always organise his remembrance game and the money from the game will go to support his family especially in paying school fees for his son.

    Mutuyimana was born in 1988 and died on 12nd September.

    He played for Kiyovu Sport and Police FC before he went to Sofapaka in Kenya where he left in 2016 joining Rayon Sports. He played for Rayon Sport s for one year.

  • Science can’t forecast love

    {Here’s some heartbreaking news for people pinning their hopes on online matchmaking sites: It’s virtually impossible to forecast a love connection.}

    Maybe that’s not so shocking to survivors of the dating wars. But now science is weighing in. Extensive background data on two individuals — comparable to that collected by digital dating services — can’t predict whether that pair will romantically click during a four-minute, face-to-face speed date, say psychologist Samantha Joel of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and colleagues.

    People know when an in-person meeting on a speed date has gone smoothly or felt right — and that bodes well for mutual attraction, the investigators report online August 30 in Psychological Science. But on paper, no blend of personal qualities and partner preferences thought to influence mate choices pegged which opposite-sex duos would hit it off, Joel’s group concludes.

    Joel expected that, say, a person who reported being attracted to extroverted people would generate the most chemistry with speed daters who reported being extroverted. Or, two people who reported being good-looking and having particularly warm personalities would feel especially attracted to one another after brief dates. But that’s not what Joel and coauthors Paul Eastwick of the University of California, Davis and Eli Finkel of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., found.

    The researchers studied 350 heterosexual college students — almost evenly split between males and females — who participated in one of 15 speed-dating events in 2005 or 2007. Participants filled out either 182-item or 112-item questionnaires about their personality traits and preferences in romantic partners. The students then completed about 12 speed dates. Afterward, participants rated their interest in and sexual attraction to each person they met.

    Some qualities romance seekers said they wanted — such as extroversion and warmth — predicted individual speed daters’ greater attractiveness to others in general. But a statistical analysis of participants’ responses found that no traits or preferences, or combinations of traits and preferences, predicted how much one person especially desired another person after a speed date.

    Joel’s team has not analyzed evidence from online matchmaking services to see if their questionnaires frequently pair people who generate romantic heat. “But our findings suggest that it’s quite difficult to predict initial romantic attraction using self-report measures before two people have met,” Joel says.

    Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, a senior researcher at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, agrees. “You’ve got to meet someone in person to trigger the brain circuitry for romantic love,” Fisher says.

    That comes as no surprise to operators of online dating sites, she adds. These sites typically don’t promise customers romantic connections, says Fisher, who is a consultant for online dating site Match.com and founded its affiliated website, Chemistry.com. The aim is to provide an array of potential dates with background and personality traits requested by a customer. The rest is up to those who decide to go on dates.

    Source: Science News

  • Business woman Uwamwezi grieves over son’s mysterious death

    {Kigali Business woman, Josephine Uwamwezi nicknamed ‘Nyiragasazi’ has deeply been afflicted by mysterious death of her 25-year-old son, Fabrice Felice Ranghella, after 11 years of being denied access to him.}

    Ranghella is the last born among three children that Uwamwezi produced with her former Italian husband, Joseph Ranghella. The two were legally married but divorced in 2006.

    Uwamwezi tells IGIHE that after divorce in 2006, she left home in Kacyiru with two sons, Fabrice Ranghella and Charles Ranghella because their sister was at school in England. At the time, Fabrice Ranghella was 14 while his elder brother was 18 years old.

    Uwamwezi felt missing her son Fabrice and went to visit him at Green Hills Academy towards end of 2006 but the son got scared by seeing her, refused to greet her and phoned the father to inform him that his mother was at school. She left the school so afflicted considering that the father had instilled hatred into the son against the mother.
    Shedding tears with a lot of sorrow, Uwamwezi says she had never seen the son since he refused to greet her in 2006 until she was informed of his death in Italy on July 6, 2017.

    She says that, as a worker in road construction, her former husband kept moving from place to place where she tried several times to visit him and children but the husband’s lawyer and gatekeepers always chased her away without meeting any of her children.

    When she heard of her son’s death, Uwamwezi rushed to Italy but hesitated to go to her former husband’s residence because she knew he was not going to welcome her. She went straight to husband’s younger brother but, unfortunately, her former husband was there to open door when she knocked.

    The man roughly told her to find the son’s body at police station without, even, clarifying which police station among many in Rome city, Italy. Uwamwezi left that residence without knowing where she could find her son’s body but later learned her son Fabrice had committed suicide.

    She wished to see her son’s face at least the last but she kept learning of his death’s circumstances from her daughter, Barbara Ranghella who was able to talk with her father and share information with the mother.

    “All the days before the burial on July 11, I kept pleading with doctors to show me my son’s body but they refused, telling me it was no use showing me the body which was torn apart because of autopsy. I got to know that the father had told hospital workers to not let me look at my son’s body,” says Uwamwezi.

    She adds that after her insistence for several times, the worker in charge of mortuary had pity on her and showed her the son’s face before wrapping the body in coffin.

    “When I saw his face, I felt soothed because I had not believed that my Fabrice was really dead,” she says.

    As a mother, Uwamwezi is still afflicted by the death of the son but especially because the death was not announced to inform the deceased’s friends like former classmates at Green Hills Academy and others in Kampala, Uganda where Fabrice also attended school.

    She says, “With great sorrow, I would inform friends of my son that he is no more so that they stop looking for him via social media. He has passed away.”

    Though Uwamwezi was told her son died of suicide, the father refused to show her doctor’s proof by allegedly lying to her that autopsy results are yet to be availed yet Uwamwezi is sure it never delays in Europe.

    “I am still afflicted because I think he died of something else other than suicide because his father is not showing me results. He says he has not got them yet but I know the autopsy results are released quickly in Europe but I am waiting,” she says.

    The afflicted mother considers seeking international justice to get her former husband tell her exactly about their son’s death.

    Fabrice Ranghella was born on May 27, 1992, studied at Green Hills Academy, Kigali and in Kampala. He died when he was about to start university.

    Late Fabrice Felice Ranghella
    Joseph Ranghella, father of Fabrice Ranghella and Ex-husband of Josephine Uwamwezi

  • Wellspring Academy celebrates 10th anniversary, graduates 41

    {{Wellspring Academy, a school that offers courses of Mathematics, Science, Human Sciences and Economics has marked anniversary of 10 years of operations in a ceremony that coincided with the awarding of certificates to its 41 former students who completed secondary school.
    }}

    The celebrations were marked in a jovial ambiance by students, parents, teachers and school’s administrative staff. Derrick Munyankindi, a graduate from a combination of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry (MPC) spoke to IGIHE about his pleasure to have completed secondary school studies from a reputable school and his readiness to go the extra mile.

    “This school doesn’t offer only science but instils good values in us and empowers us to face the future. Wellspring Academy teaches us about Christianity which is the foundation for a brighter future. I have got a good package of science and discipline from this school which will help me become an important citizen of this country and the world at large. This foundation will also help me perform well at university,” he said.

    Stephen Rudakemwa, deputy director of Wellspring Academy, said the school is proud to mark 10 year of operations in training future leaders for the country and the world as the mission of the school.

    “I urge our graduates to retain the knowledge they acquired from here. Christian values must accompany science to succeed in life. We urge them to lean on the Almighty God in their life,” he said.

    Andy Harrington, director and one of the founders of Wellspring Foundation, said it was a good step by the school for graduating students at the second time, producing good minds for the future of the country.

    “We offer a purposeful education. We train students to be good leaders who will transform Rwanda and show difference in the world entirely,” he said.

    Among 41 who received certificates of completion include 22 males and 19 females in addition to other 46 who completed in the inaugural graduation, last year.

    Located in Nyarutarama, Wellspring Academy was established by members of Christian Life Assembly and Wellspring Foundation in 2007, with a mission to instil Christian values in students while healing the wounds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

    The school is among the best schools in Kigali and currently has 642 enrolled students.

  • Maid arrested over attempted infanticide

    {A housemaid who was working for a family in Gihara cell, Runda sector in Kamonyi district has been arrested and detained at Runda police station, suspected of being in the process of committing infanticide. }

    The maid, was caught red handed as she allegedly prepared to kill the two children by drowning them in River Nyabarongo. The children’s lives were saved by people who were passing by and got to their rescue.

    IP Emmannuel Kayigi the police spokesperson in the Southern Province has told IGIHE that the maid was just about to kill the children of four and three years.

    “She immersed the head of the first born in the river who cried loudly, attracting the attention of people in the neighbourhood. When they realized what was happening, they instantly grabbed the maid and rescued the children.” said IP Kayigi.

    The children were then safely returned to their parents who claimed they’ve never had any conflict of any sort with the maid during her three years of service under their roof. The accused will be charged with attempted murder.

  • Rejected for mothering a child born out of genocide rape

    {Desperation engulfed Agnès Uwimana back in 2007, the time she felt nobody paid any iota of attention to her dire situation; a situation of a mother of a rape-child, having no shelter and living with infirmity as a consequence of atrocious torture she went through during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which took a toll on her being.}

    Guided by a counsellor familiar to the victim, we visit Uwimana in Kamonyi District, Musambira Sector, Mpushi Cell, Nyarurama Village, where she battles to meet the basic means of survival, swamped in worries of debts, including monthly house rent of Rwf4,000.

    On Wednesday of last week, amidst the glowing radiance of the midday sunshine, we reach. Uwimana gets out of her house to see the visitors but her face creases into a solemn look. She lifts and places both her hands at the top of her head. She stands still in a distance not willing to talk even to the counsellor she had seen several times before. The counsellor notices the victim’s trauma that has resurfaced following another rape by one of the four night attackers who had stormed her home six days before and stole all 50kgs of beans she had harvested.

    The attack is confirmed to IGIHE by the executive secretary of Musambira Sector, Etienne Muvunyi, who says the victim and three suspects were taken to Kacyiru Hospital for medical treatment and a DNA test respectively as police opened investigations into the case last week.

    The counsellor comforts the victim who later admits us, provides a bench and opens up for a long talk from the house she had left to seek refuge from the neighbour since the previous week’s attack. Uwimana reveals she does not want to see any people because she feels all people are heartless and fierce as the recent rape reopened her wounds of the multiple rapes she was subjected to during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi which claimed over one million lives, an estimated 250,000 rapes, and, according to Foundation Rwanda, produced 20,000 rape-babies. .

    {{Shunned by society}}

    During the 1994 genocide, Uwimana, then 23-year old, was raped by Interahamwe (the genocide frontline hit-men), impregnated and gave birth to a baby boy in 1995. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Uwimana kept the dark secret of the circumstances of her son’s conception from him. In 2015, however, after receiving intensive counselling from Survivors Fund (SURF), a local charity, Uwimana opened up to her son.

    Uwimana’s son is now a student in senior five at a boarding school far from home and the two have reconciled. Filled with abounding curiosity, the son pestered the mother for long with questions about his father. One day in 2015 the mother gave a partial but ambiguous answer; “Will you know who has beaten you if the entire multitude of Musambira market beat you?” Uwimana clarified to the son that she cannot identify who impregnated her from among the legion of her 1994 rapists.

    Uwimana, like many other 1994 unmarried rape victims, faced excruciating life hardships after genocide because their status was not considered in any government special schemes for genocide survivors like the Association of Genocide Widows (AVEGA Agahozo) that helps widows and their dependents escape poverty, anguish and misery as well as the Fund for Neediest Survivors of Genocide (FARG) which promotes social welfare of the survivors.

    During different selections of beneficiaries of different programmes which provided many genocide survivors with houses and more assistance, Uwimana has always been ignored and, she says, would hear participants in the selection process murmuring; “Don’t consider that one, she is raising a child of interahamwe (genocide perpetrators),” something that stigmatised her and abandoned appearing at public meetings.

    “I also felt my son was the worst interahamwe I was living with and hated him for that. He used to irritate me and roughly rebuke him whenever he asked me to, at least, describe his father’s size and skin colour. I, later, realised he is innocent, I explained everything to him and he forgave me,” says Uwimana.

    {{The assistance that never was}}

    Uwimana, checking on the house that the sector's office has committed to deliver to her by next month.

    Uwimana says she submitted a letter to the presidency in April 2007 to seek support for a house and other means of survival. She was, later, called to the district office and told her financial support was deposited on the bank account of the sector. When she checked with sector offices, they gave her only Rwf5,000.

    “And I wondered if five thousand was the support that the President of the Republic had sent me yet I asked for a house and other forms of support for survival. I kept complaining to the sector’s office but they all fooled me. They called me a mad woman and threatened me with jail. I stopped going there, up to now,” Uwimana sadly narrates.

    The current Musambira sector executive secretary, Muvunyi, who ascended to office in November 2016, says he knew nothing about the Uwimana 2007 saga. Uwimana had not appeared in public until last month when she was called at the 23rd commemoration event to give account of her ordeal during the genocide. Muvunyi was present at the event and heard of Uwimana’s dire living conditions. All other survivors in the area have got decent houses and more support.

    Muvunyi says his office has offered roof for the victim’s house, mobilised the community to contribute in building the house and promised advocacy for further support. During this visit, we found local leaders including Muvunyi, police officers and community members putting up the walls of the house.

    Uwimana, now mother of three, lives in misery and depression but her eldest son, born out of rape, is getting education with the support of SURF and Foundation Rwanda, this support is delivered by Kinyarwanda, an international NGO partnering with SURF. Similar support is provided to youth born of rape in membership of AVEGA Agahozo and Solace Ministries. Her two other sons are aged seven and four but Uwimana never got officially married. She only followed a local myth that producing again would cure her unceasing menstrual bleeding, which, fortunately cured her as she testifies.

    Emilienne Kambibi, works with SURF and Foundation Rwanda as a counsellor in charge of an educational program which supports youth born of genocide rape and manages a community counselling program which supports the mothers. She says SURF identified 1,250 rape-children in 2008 but the charity was able to help only 830 to complete secondary education while 296 are still receiving the support.

    Kambibi adds that during the counselling programme dubbed “Healing for mothers and hope for children”, Foundation Rwanda and SURF discovered that rape victims who were unmarried in 1994 are infested with an aching stigma because they are neither considered as widows nor their children as orphans which have been the focus categories for special government support. As a result, most of them have not benefitted from the fund for supporting neediest survivors.

    Kambibi says SURF and Foundation Rwanda keeps doing advocacy on these issues and supports the vulnerable with the available means “These rape victims and their children need assistance to feel accepted and understood. They experience extreme trauma which can be dealt with for recovery over time if they receive the right support,” she observes.

    The Executive secretary of Musambira sector in kamonyi district, Etienne Muvunyi
    Uwimana showing Counsellor Kambibi her medical results, and her letter to government Officials, seeking assistance

  • These 17 quotes will inspire you to chase your dreams

    {Almost everyone has dreams, but there are two kinds of people – the ones who chase their dreams and the ones who chase other people’s dreams.}

    {{Are you scared of chasing your dreams? These 17 quotes will spur you on:}}

    1. “What’s the purpose of living if you don’t go after your dreams?” – Samson Reiny

    2. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

    3. “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France

    4. “Pay attention to your dreams. They could be telling you things that you need to know.” – Brigitte Nicole

    5. “I have had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.” – Jonas Salk

    6. “Any dream worth dreaming, is worth the effort to make it some true.” – Evan Gourley

    7. “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

    8. “If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.” – Marcel Proust

    9. “If you can’t stop thinking about it. Don’t stop working for it.” – Anonymous

    10. “Believe in your dreams. There were given to you for a reason.” – Katrina Mayer

    11. “If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.” – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

    12. “Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” – Napoleon Hill

    13. “If you can imagine it, You can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.” – William Arthur Ward

    14. “Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.” – Life’s Little Instructions

    15. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” – Anonymous

    16. “If I can dream, I can act. And if I can act, I can become.” – Poh Yu Khing

    17. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

    Source:Elcrema

  • 4 ways you waster money without knowing it

    {We’ve all thrown money away at some point, without really realising it. Wastefulness is bad though, because what you waste now, you could need tomorrow; besides, you worked hard for the money, so why waste it?}

    I’m going to share 4 ways we all mostly waste money, and hopefully, we’ll realise just how it happens, and learn to control it more.

    {{Sales promos }}

    Sales promos are designed to generate more sales and profit for a business. When a company starts one, it’s simply looking to get you to buy more, and part with more of your hard-earned money. Typically, sales promos ask you to buy more and win something exciting, or discount on prices. It sounds good, but it’ll drive you to buy more than you are used to buying, even things you don’t really need. When you buy stuff you have little need for, it’s wrong investment, and a wrong investment is a waste of money.

    {{Unused memberships }}

    Depending on your type of job, it’s mostly difficult to keep up with certain side tasks and leisure, like going to a gym or clubbing for example. In most parts, these two things require registration and membership for one to enjoy them. Now, imagine paying so much for these, and then, not having the time to enjoy them; would be a waste.

    {{Food waste}}

    Nobody likes to buy food and then throw them away, unless there’s something wrong. In a lot of societies, consistent power supply is still a myth and this does not help with food storage. Sometimes, you buy so much because there’s electricity at that point, but then, that changes sooner or later. This often leads to unexpected wastage of food.

    {{Poor negotiation power }}

    Price negotiations are important because you can save a lot of money through it. Imagine paying for a car at a price nearly double the original cost. Negotiation can change that, and save you some money. If you don’t do this, you need to learn to.

    Source:Elcrema