Voices of Victims

For all you Winnipeggers out there...

Tutsi genocide survivor and human rights activist speaks at the Berney Theater, Asper Jewish Community Campus

December 9, 2008 (WINNPEG) The Jewish Students’ Association/Hillel in partnership with the East Indian Students’ Association, The African Students’ Association, Walk4Darfur and STAND are proud to present Eloge Christian Butera on January 8th, 2009 at 7pm at the Berney Theatre inside the Asper Jewish Community Campus.

Butera will be speaking about his experience as a survivor of the 1994 Tutsi genocide and the need to prevent genocides and other human rights violations.

Butera is currently a second year law student at McGill University and previously studied religions and psychology at the University of Manitoba, where he was actively involved in various human rights awareness and advocacy initiatives. He has spoken to dozens of audiences across Canada about his experience.

Winnipeg composer Zane Zalis, along with his talented musical troupe Prodigy, will also perform excerpts from I Believe, which will premiere on May 21, 2009. I Believe documents the Holocaust experience as seen and lived by those directly involved -- the perpetrators, the victims, the observers and, in a plea for informed hope and peace, ourselves.

Tickets are $5.00 and can be purchased at any of the following locations:
∑ Answers – University of Manitoba at University Centre
∑ Info-booth – University of Winnipeg
∑ Jewish Federation of Winnipeg – C300-123 Doncaster Street

A portion of all ticket sales will be donated on behalf of the partners, organizations and students to Tubahumarize, a women’s collective based in Kigali, Rwanda. The organization was founded by Butera’s mother, Jeanne Mwiliriza, to provide trauma counseling and support to widows and orphans of the genocide. Since then, the collective has grown to help hundreds of women and children escape domestic violence.