What is your background/back story?
My back story is this; I am Ali and I am from Rwanda. I arrived in this country as an asylum seeker, I was granted refugee status and seven years later, given citizenship in 2008. I became vice chair of the North East Rwandan Association and I have worked for them since then.
Why should people remember the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide?
It’s a very important question, because as a survivor and a brother of someone who passed in the genocide and other family members, it is important to me. 30 years seems a lot of years, but we feel like it was just last week. After 30 years, it is very important to remember those who gave us help. We realise that there is a way of reducing stress by doing commemorations. 30 years is not many years for me and our children… We’ve have found many friends who didn’t know what happened and what we’ve been through, how we help people to learn what happened in the 100 days to take 1.2 million lives and prevent it happening again.
What do the North East Rwandan Association do?
We discovered that there are a lot of Rwandans in the North East, back in 2004, 2005 and 2006 and we had to create an association which can link us together and tell people where we’re from, why we’re here, and how genocide had destroyed lives. It is important to connect with local people, as many people don’t know about it. We need to spread the word and help prevent something similar happening in the future. NERA has been a great help for many Rwandans in the North East. with the help of local authorities, communities and a lot of schools and community centres who want to learn about Rwanda. I go into schools to talk about genocide. With NERA, it is not just my voice. We have to encourage people to come out of themselves…
Can you tell me about successes?
Putting Rwandans together; there were a lot of divisions before the organisation, but we can make people believe that we are together. This is a success, and we see a lot of supporters embracing this cause and continuing to spread this cause, including local authorities seeing people in the North East knowing about Rwanda people who did not know why we were here, so it’s been a success with the arrangement with local authorities.
Newcastle City Council raises the Rwandan flag on 7 April at the Civic Centre to commemorate the atrocities. It shows respect from North East people, supporting Rwandans and people are mourning with us. People being a help to know what happened.
NERA, in collaboration with local authorities, will have a memorial stone to commemorate the genocide and it will be somewhere where we can put flowers. People come from London to Newcastle and see that it is a sanctuary city, a welcoming city and where they share the sadness of the Rwandans.
Can you tell me about your plans for the future?
With NERA, I’m the chair now and we have a programme to raise awareness about the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsis. We have a lot of schools and we have been working with the West End Refugee Service and Holocaust Memorial Day.
We have an office now. where we can organise things and we can keep our paperwork and organise it so that it is important for us. We hope to get a better one and it is always good to share with other communities.
Why is the work of the North East Rwanda Association important?
I’m a survivor. This is important to many other people to learn what happened in Rwanda in those years. I am a father of five children and the youngest is 20 years old. I help my children to know where I am coming from and this is really important.
What would be your vision of a better future for people in the North East and the country as a whole?
I have been living here for the last 23 years and I know how it was when I arrived. Newcastle is one of the best examples of cities in terms of welcoming people and giving people sanctuary. It is important to feel at home. I didn’t have that feeling of belonging in 2006/7, but I became convinced that Newcastle is a good place to live. I was welcomed in a good way. Let’s give back what they have given me; the support and respect of the people of Newcastle. They are a welcoming people. I feel at home. Rwanda is my motherland. but Newcastle is my home. I love being here. It changed my life and it is in an example of a welcoming city. This city is very different to other cities in the country. Newcastle is not a racist city; it has diversity and we live in harmony with our friends. I have no fear and everyone I speak to about what happened to me and getting the memorial is important for us and for local people and to prevent it happening again. I am an adopted Geordie and my son feels that he is a Geordie and Rwandan and British citizen. Geordies are lovely people!
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I can see things in Newcastle generally changing for good; communities are organised it is good to be together and you gave me the confidence to talk in schools back in 2003 which was really important.
