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| Roméo Dallaire |
Fifty students will be able to visit Rwanda during the first or second week of March 2020, for a cross culture learning experience inspired by Romeo Dallaire.
Lieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire, is a Canadian humanitarian, author and retired senator and general. Dallaire founded The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, and has written novels concerning these types of issues.
Dallaire will be speaking in Miramichi to help launch this Africa 2020 initiative on Thursday, November 1. About thirty Blackville high school students will be attending the afternoon presentation at James M. Hill.
Thursday evening he will be an honoured guest at a dinner and silent auction fundraiser at the Rodd Miramichi. Dallaire will be the keynote speaker at the dinner and will be introduced by Senator David Adams Richards.
At Blackville School the Africa 2020 initiative is headed by school teacher Aaron Johnston. Mr. Johnston made reference to a quote by Dallaire that Johnston said is “seen as a philosophy” shared within the District. The quote is below this article.
Though this will be an expensive trip, it is estimated that $425 is raised roughly each month through fundraising. Many students in the District are excited to visit Rwanda and many more are excited to see and listen to Roméo Dallaire today.
“I would consider it wise for this nation to instil a formal rite of passage that every young person have a pair of boots under their bed that have been soiled in the earth of a developing country where you went and saw and learned and smelled and touched and tasted what is happening to 80 percent of humanity. And you bring that back and it influences you for the rest of your life because you live with a passion for humanity." - Roméo Dallaire
Article by Jenna Coulter
Photo by Michelle Campbell, CEO, St Joseph's Health Care Foundation, London Ontario (St Joseph's Health Care Foundation, London Ontario) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons