Note to Correspondents

UNITED NATIONS EVENT 7 APRIL TO MARK FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF RWANDA GENOCIDE

Lunchtime Event Will Include Testimonials

By Genocide Survivors, Launch of Two Photo Exhibits

In observance of the fifteenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, a commemorative event will take place in the Trusteeship Council Chamber at United Nations Headquarters, on Tuesday, 7 April, from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m., followed by a book signing by Jonathan Torgovnik in the Visitors’ Lobby from 2:30 to 3 p.m.

The commemorative event, organized by the Department of Public Information in conjunction with the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the United Nations, will include the reading of testimonies of genocide survivors by United Nations officials, well-known personalities and students.

Readers include United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Asha-Rose Migiro; the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng; and the Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the United Nations, Joseph Nsengimana, himself a genocide survivor.  Similar readings of testimonies of survivors of the Rwanda genocide will take place in cities worldwide, including Brazzaville, Canberra, Cape Town, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, Mexico, Tokyo, and elsewhere in New York.

The event will also launch two photography exhibits –- “Visions of Rwanda” and “Intended Consequences: Photographs and Interviews” by Jonathan Torgovnik –- to vividly illustrate the lives of genocide survivors in Rwanda today, the challenges they face and their visions for their future.  The two exhibits will remain on display in the Main Gallery of the Visitors’ Lobby through 10 May.  More information on the exhibits follows below.

At the conclusion of the commemorative event, Mr. Torgovnik will sign copies of his Intended Consequences book, which accompanies the exhibit, from 2:30 p.m., also in the Visitors’ Lobby.

RSVP by 2 April is essential for attendees without a United Nations access pass.  Please send an e-mail to el-ansarys@un.org, or phone +1 917 367 2753 with name and contact details.

For journalists without United Nations press accreditation, please refer to the website of the Media and Accreditation Liaison Unit for details: http://www.un.org/media/accreditation or contact: +1 212 963 6934.

For media queries, please contact Renata Sivacolundhu, tel: +1 212 963 2932, e-mail: sivacolundhu@un.org; or Melanie Nolte, tel: +1 917 367 0262 e-mail: nolte@un.org, of the Department of Public Information’s Outreach Programme on the Rwanda Genocide and the United Nations.

The Exhibits

“Visions of Rwanda: Images of Survival, Reconciliation, Forgiveness and Hope” -- Genocide survivors and perpetrators in Rwanda came together in November 2007 to document their daily lives, hopes, dreams and memories as part of the “Visions of Rwanda” photo project.  The 12 participants included orphans, widows, rape and assault survivors, a judge and perpetrators, some of whom were responsible for the deaths of family members of other participants.  The participants, many of whom had never used a camera before, were trained and given general photography tips by a United Nations facilitator and were then free to document topics of importance to them –- their “visions of Rwanda”.  Examples of subjects portrayed in the photographs include memorials to the genocide, children and families, important buildings, landscapes, weddings and burials.

The “Visions of Rwanda” project and exhibit are an initiative of the United Nations Department of Public Information’s Outreach Programme on the Rwanda Genocide and the United Nations.

The exhibit “Intended Consequences:  Photographs and Interviews” brings together award-winning photographer Jonathan Torgovnik’s powerful documentation of the accounts of several Rwandan women who were subjected to sexual violence during the 1994 genocide.  Due to the stigma of rape and “having a child of the militia”, the communities and few surviving relatives of these women have largely shunned them.  The portraits and testimonies featured in “Intended Consequences” offer intensely personal accounts of these survivors’ experiences of the genocide and the challenges they face today, as well as their conflicted feelings about raising children who are a reminder of the horrors they endured.

This exhibit is supported by the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations and the United Nations Public Information Department.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at +1 212 963 8531, arnesen@un.org; or Liza Wichmann at +1 212 963 0089; wichmann@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record