Workable Peace: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide in Post-Colonial Africa: Reconciliation in Rwanda

Workable Peace is an innovative high school humanities curriculum and professional development project for secondary school classrooms.  Using new teaching materials and strategies, Workable Peace integrates the study of intergroup conflict and the development of critical thinking, problem-solving, and perspective-taking skills into social studies and humanities content.  It gives teachers academically rigorous tools for teaching the major themes and key events of history in ways that enliven the imagination, awaken moral reasoning, and impart social and civic skills that students can use throughout their lives.

Ethnic Conflict and Genocide in Post-Colonial Africa focuses on the historical aftermath of the colonial era in Africa and the impact of German ad Belgian preferential treatment of the Tutsis over Hutus in Rwanda.  Students learn about the history of the country, and examine the international response to the Rwandan genocide.  During the Rwanda role play, students explore the challenges of reconciliation and survival in a small village in the Gisenyi Province of northern Rwanda in the post-genocide era, after a massive wave of Hutu refugees has returned to Rwanda.  The participants, all local residents, are asked to solve an issue which has become acutely critical in the new Rwand: ownership of a contested piece of land.