By Matthew Matola | Grant Writer
On December 10, 2021, our 128 first-year (Enrichment Year) students stood before the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) to announce their new class and student family names during a special Village Time ceremony. Since our first class of students arrived in December 2008, we have encouraged each of our grades to choose names that speak to them. Continuing this tradition was especially important in 2021, after the Covid-19 pandemic prevented us from welcoming a new class of Enrichment Year students in 2020.
After two months of working with one another and ASYV staff members to consider potential names, our Enrichment Year students proudly announced to the Village community that a name for their grade had been chosen: Intwari, which can be translated as “hero.” Now known as Intwari Grade, our Enrichment Year students will work to embody the heroism this name represents at ASYV and beyond.
Each of our grades chooses a meaningful Kinyarwanda word to represent the class. Past grade names, for example, have included Urumuli, which can be translated as “light;” Icyizere, which can be translated as “hope;” and Ishyaka, which can be translated as “determination” or “enthusiasm.” By asking our Enrichment Year students to choose a Kinyarwanda word to represent their grade, we invite them to come together in a shared activity celebrating Rwandan culture and identity. This activity encourages a strong sense of pride in themselves and their community, and connects them both to each other and to their older brothers and sisters at ASYV. By choosing an aspirational term to represent themselves, this activity also gives our Enrichment Year students an ideal to strive for.
In addition to choosing a name for their grade, our Enrichment Year students also work together to choose names for their student families. Each of our students is placed in a residence of 20–24 students, and each of these student families is named after a historical figure whose life and work give our kids a sense of their own power and potential to make a positive difference.
Our Enrichment Year students began exploring potential names for their student families shortly after they arrived in the Village in October 2021. ASYV staff and graduates provided support and encouraged first-year students to have fun while conducting independent, collaborative research into inspirational individuals from across Africa and the world. In addition to showing our youngest students that learning can be an enjoyable and engaging exercise, the process of selecting family names also gave them a chance to begin forming vital bonds with their peers while learning more about themselves, each other, and their history.
After extensive research and deliberation, our Enrichment Year students were ready to share their family names. They announced that they would name their student families after Claudette Colvin, an activist in the United States civil rights movement and a mentee of Rosa Parks; Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the late prime minister of Rwanda and a former chemistry teacher who advocated for women’s education in math and science; Cyprien Rugamba, who, together with his wife, Daphrose, worked on behalf of unhoused Rwandan children and advocated for peace in Rwanda before the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi; Chadwick Boseman, an American actor and director who won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for his role in the film Black Panther; Mariama Bâ, a Senegalese author, educator, and women’s rights activist; and Winnie Mandela, a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of parliament. Each of these individuals showed heroism in the struggle for a more just and equal world, and we have no doubt that our Intwari Grade will demonstrate the same commitment. We closed this very special Village Time ceremony with a speech from Executive Director Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura and a celebratory cake.
We hope you enjoyed this brief report on our Enrichment Year students’ naming ceremony. If you would like to keep up with the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village and our Intwari Grade, we invite you to follow us on our social media pages at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It is thanks to your compassion and generosity that our Intwari Grade has a chance to be heroes to themselves and Rwanda, and we could not be more grateful. Murakoze cyane (thank you very much)!
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