A Rwandan orphanage modeled on those constructed for Holocaust survivors will welcome 120 victims of the 1994 genocide Monday.  Funded largely by Jewish American and international donors, Agahozo Shalom Youth Village will eventually take in 500 genocide orphans, whose families were lost in a bloody ethnic cleansing campaign which claimed 800,000 lives in 100 days.

The project, which has attracted celebrity support from actress Natalie Portman and the Clinton Global Initiative, is modeled on the Israeli orphanage Yemin Orde, constructed to assist young survivors of the Holocaust following World War II.  Similar orphanages emphasizing trauma counseling, educational therapy and volunteerism have since been built in Ethiopia and Kosovo.

The need for such programs remains high in Rwanda, where an estimated 1.2 million orphans and at-risk-children reside after losing parents to the genocide, subsequent imprisonment or AIDS. Agahozo Shalom is budgeted at $20 million, funded largely by private donors, corporate sponsors and partnership with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

“The genocide in Rwanda has hit a strong chord with Jews, who have compassion and understanding of the trauma involved, and what is needed for reconciliation and to move forward,” said William Recant, Director of Disaster Relief and Development for the JDC.

Agahozo Shalom will employ dozens of Rwandan teachers, counselors and staff, and hopes to establish a Rwandan Board of Directors to oversee the project in the long-term.  “We’ve been very careful to make sure we’re working in a sensitive manner and a cultural manner,” Recant said.  “There were questions from the very beginning as to size, scale, the ability of local culture to take this in and adapt.  But what we found was tremendous energy and encouragement to make it happen.”

An Agahozo Shalom counselor and genocide survivor himself, Innocent Gisanura sees the project as a positive step forward in helping his country’s children address the traumas of the past in order to attain positive futures.

“We united ourselves to work hand to hand to overcome some psychological problems we have been facing. To fight this trauma, loneliness, sorrow,” Gisanura said.  “We’ll work hand in hand with them, to keep them with a strong spirit that every human being must have to have a vision and achieve goals.” 

Agahozo donors, volunteers and participants describe a shared commitment and duty to act in Rwanda, particularly in light of their experiences of the holocaust a half-century before.  “There’s no question that the Rwandan situation resonates with Jews globally,” said New York-based Recant, whose own parents were holocaust survivors. 

- As originally reported by the AFP , Monday, December 15, 2008