Yericko Nyerere
JF-Expert Member
- Dec 22, 2010
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In Rwanda, even ballpoint pens hold emotional lessons. John Fox remembers the moment a travelling companion handed one to a child on a trek back from a gorilla refuge in Virunga National Park.
The child ran off into the bush, squealing with delight. Then came the scolding. The guide stopped the entire group, recalls Fox, one of 27 Wharton students who visited Rwanda in January 2012 as part of a special course on conflict, leadership and change, and he said, You cannot do that. All youre doing is teaching these kids to be beggars. That is not acceptable to us.
It was a moment when Fox realised how nearly every person he met in Rwanda seemed onboard with a common vision to rebuild the country.
From the minister of defence to the bus driver, Rwandans seemed propelled by both history and hope, the ferocity of every personal nightmare apparently overcome by an even fiercer collective determination to move beyond it.
Its a message that comes from the top. President Paul Kagame has vowed to transform Rwanda from a country of subsistence farmers reliant on aid to an independent, innovative economy filled with knowledge entrepreneurs by 2020.
Less than a generation after a brutal genocide in 1994 that killed more than 800,000 people in 100 days, the World Bank calls Rwanda a country at peace and among the most stable on the continent.
More than half (56 per cent) of the countrys parliamentarians are women a larger percentage than in any country in the world.
In the past five years alone, according to Rwandas Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, more than one million Rwandans have pulled themselves out of poverty, and the country continues to grow.
I think of Rwanda as a very rich case study, notes Whartons Prof Katherine Klein, who designed the course with Eric Kacou, co-founder of Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners.
Students spent four intensive days in Rwanda learning about the countrys history and meeting local business leaders, genocide survivors and a wide range of government officials.
The country has made remarkable progress in the nearly 18 years since the genocide, Prof Klein says. For observers, and certainly for future leaders, the countrys transformation provokes questions and deep thought. I see in Rwanda a leadership and management case writ large.
A visionary leader
Kagame is hailed as the visionary leader responsible for Rwandas dramatic change. His critics attribute his success to intolerant dictatorship that suppresses dissent.
Yet Rwandas transformation did not come from one man alone, Kagames supporters say: Rwanda changed by establishing a common history, facing up to past conflicts, constructing a clear path forward and bringing everyone on board to get the job done.
In a world in which conflict is emerging as a near constant, Kagames example prompts important questions,
The child ran off into the bush, squealing with delight. Then came the scolding. The guide stopped the entire group, recalls Fox, one of 27 Wharton students who visited Rwanda in January 2012 as part of a special course on conflict, leadership and change, and he said, You cannot do that. All youre doing is teaching these kids to be beggars. That is not acceptable to us.
It was a moment when Fox realised how nearly every person he met in Rwanda seemed onboard with a common vision to rebuild the country.
From the minister of defence to the bus driver, Rwandans seemed propelled by both history and hope, the ferocity of every personal nightmare apparently overcome by an even fiercer collective determination to move beyond it.
Its a message that comes from the top. President Paul Kagame has vowed to transform Rwanda from a country of subsistence farmers reliant on aid to an independent, innovative economy filled with knowledge entrepreneurs by 2020.
Less than a generation after a brutal genocide in 1994 that killed more than 800,000 people in 100 days, the World Bank calls Rwanda a country at peace and among the most stable on the continent.
More than half (56 per cent) of the countrys parliamentarians are women a larger percentage than in any country in the world.
In the past five years alone, according to Rwandas Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, more than one million Rwandans have pulled themselves out of poverty, and the country continues to grow.
I think of Rwanda as a very rich case study, notes Whartons Prof Katherine Klein, who designed the course with Eric Kacou, co-founder of Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners.
Students spent four intensive days in Rwanda learning about the countrys history and meeting local business leaders, genocide survivors and a wide range of government officials.
The country has made remarkable progress in the nearly 18 years since the genocide, Prof Klein says. For observers, and certainly for future leaders, the countrys transformation provokes questions and deep thought. I see in Rwanda a leadership and management case writ large.
A visionary leader
Kagame is hailed as the visionary leader responsible for Rwandas dramatic change. His critics attribute his success to intolerant dictatorship that suppresses dissent.
Yet Rwandas transformation did not come from one man alone, Kagames supporters say: Rwanda changed by establishing a common history, facing up to past conflicts, constructing a clear path forward and bringing everyone on board to get the job done.
In a world in which conflict is emerging as a near constant, Kagames example prompts important questions,
