Rwanda Project, the precursor group of present Youth Conference, was established in 2005 by Shigetugu KOMINE who was a visiting professor at Waseda  Volunteer Center.

    However since 2008, we have restarted as a group initiated by students and professor KOMINE became our special advisor as Senior Consultant. In September the same year, eight university students went to Rwanda and held the First Conference at the National University of Rwanda. The Japanese side took up topics such as ‘pollution disease’ and ‘aging society’ which were examples of a negative aspect of a developed society. The topics taken up by the Rwandan students belonging to a dance group working for peace building were ‘formation of civilian community’, ‘youth leaderships’ and ‘ideologies of the genocide’. Each side took turns holding presentations followed by discussions on those themes. It was the first time in the history of diplomacy that Japanese and Rwandan students had such discussions and with the cooperation of Japanese NGO workers, JICA and WFP workers, the First Conference and the visit to Rwanda ended as a great success.

    We undertook the whole process at an equal relationship as the same university students, which was different from a one-sided pattern seen in country level diplomat or aids such as ODA. Through the first visit, our members felt the significance of exerting to understand the problems and development of a country through a human-to- human relationship. Members of both countries confirmed our resolution to continue our activity.

    In order to continue and develop this international exchange between Japan and Rwanda, and to deepen mutual understanding in peace building and cultural exchange areas, we hold the Second Conference in Rwanda this summer (August 2009). Moreover we also have decided to hold theThird Conference in Japan (17th December 2009- 7th January 2010). In the future we aim to heighten the presence of Rwanda in Japan and to be of some help to build an equal diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

• THREE MAIN CONDITIONS  TO JOIN JRYC IN RWANDA

1. Student of National University of Rwanda(NUR)
2. Disciplined and thoughtful person certified in partnership and culture exchange.
3. Accepted by JRYC assembly after submitting  a requesting letter and  application form to the committee JRYC
   

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Tel:0788609821/0728609821

      Email: jesusalf05yahoo.fr/ njesus05@gmail.com

japanrwanda@yahoo.fr