African Unification Front
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Face to face with Rwanda’s First Lady
Rwanda’s First Lady is as busy as her husband. She has dedicated her efforts in crusading for the development of women and children’s affairs, writes Samwel Rambaya.
She strode in gracefully, resplendent in an overflowing silk brown dress and matching open shoes. Her short jet black hair emphasised a glow that broke into a charming smile that lit up the room.
The tall, confident and self-assured woman was Jeannette Nyiramongi Kagame, Rwanda’s First Lady. Besides being a mother and wife, she is a student, a manager of a school and a charity worker with strings of appointments and public engagements locally and internationally.
Her diary is as crowded as her husband’s. That is why when her aide, Dr Agnes Bagwaho, warned us that the First Lady would only grant us a 15-minute interview, we understood.Our interview was slated for 6pm (7pm Kenyan time) and we were at the State House, Kigali, 15 minutes early for security clearance. In less than 10 minutes, we were seated in a luxurious guest suite, enjoying the company of a courteous support staff.
Then she strode in. Although she is articulate and effortlessly lets her thoughts loose, she remains in charge of the interview.
Jeannette who celebrates her fortieth birthday this August is charming, compassionate and eloquent. Her precise responses to questions are wrapped in a crisp, disarming voice.
She draws her strength from past experiences and her story is one of pain and sadness entwined with that of her country’s problems. These experiences have enabled her relate with the circumstances hurting the marginalised in Africa and her country.
She is among the Rwandese who were born and raised as refugees after her parents fled the killings in the country. Born in a family of seven in Burundi, Jeannette was turning 21 when her parents who had fled from the civil strife in Rwanda relocated the family from Burundi to Kenya in 1983. Kenya was a haven for refugees and the risk of assimilation alarmed the fiercely conservative Rwandese in Diaspora. The threat of culture loss for the already stateless community was something Jeannette fought against by being active in campaigns for its preservation.
Her gift as an artiste came handy and besides promoting consciousness, the plays that she helped stage were also a tool for healing their wounds and acted as an expression for rallying the Rwandese to a common cause.
After a three-year stint in Kenya, she moved to Uganda where she met and married Kagame, a teetotaller career soldier, five years her senior. Of her life in exile, Jeannette says: “It was an experience, that taught us how to relate with people from diverse cultures. I especially enjoyed my stay in Kenya.”
Other lessons learnt are reflected in her practical engagements in and out of Rwanda. Her grasp of issues on governance, economics, health and gender and how they affect women, is impressive. She was not returning to Rwanda to share the spoils, but to actualise her lifetime dream of creating a positive impact in the life of her people. Today she is the manager of Green Hills Academy, a primary and secondary school complex she founded in 1996. She believes passionately, that access to quality education by children is key to the reconstruction of Rwanda.
By bringing these children together, the Academy is instituting a new sense of identity, responsibility and commitment to Rwanda in them. “As a mother, I am sad that not every child is given this opportunity. We all have a duty towards our children,” she says. Out of her husband’s shadows, she is galvanising the Rwandese and putting forward a case for the disadvantaged. She is passionate about the family institution especially the status of children and women.
Recently, she mobilised the Rwandese to donate towards
a charity project for Aids victims, a drive that
raised an equivalent of Sh10 million.
And with this, she succeeded in something else.
“The overwhelming response to my appeal was in a way,
a healing process,” she says.
Last year, she was in Geneva for an Aids conference
where she argued the case for the Rwandese families
ravaged by HIV/Aids.
She also rallied the World Health Organisation and
drug manufacturing companies to her quest for access
to cheaper anti-Aids drugs for Rwandese victims. In
her crusade, she seeks a strategy where affected
families are also catered for.
Her emphasis is on the prevention of mother to child
transmission targeting pregnant HIV infected women who
are offered free counselling and drugs in local health
centres.
Her greatest accomplishment so far was the hosting of
the African First Ladies Summit in Rwanda last year.
The summit, the first of its kind, was for first
ladies from sub-Saharan Africa and focused on the war
against Aids.
Its theme was the unique role that First Ladies play
in the fight against Aids and for protection of the
rights of children and women in situations of armed
conflict.
By bringing some of the most influential African women
to Rwanda, she elevated the Rwandese women beyond the
regional frontiers.
Jeannette was mandated to spearhead the formation of
the African First Ladies Alliance that will bring
together wives of the sitting and ex-Presidents.
With her husband being appointed, by fellow
presidents, the Voice of Africa’s youth, Jeannette
couldn’t have performed better in a region whose
intricacies she is familiar with.
Rwanda’s First Lady has strong views on the country’s
genocide which has left behind a population where
women, mainly widows who were raped and infected with
Aids are the majority.
“It is a pity that the international community is yet
to appreciate the enormity of our problem,” she says.
She says the UN decision to classify rape as a crime
against humanity in the on-going International
Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, in Arusha, is hollow to
Rwandese women.
“Until we see suspects being punished for rape, we
will continue feeling short-changed.”
Jeannette says she feels insulted whenever the world
media portrays Rwanda in terms of ethnicity.
“As much as we can’t ignore our history, there are
more pertinent issues than our differences to look
at,” she says.
In her view, the world should focus on the unity,
reconciliation and the healing process where women are
the prime movers.
One of these initiatives is the Unity Club, a grouping
of Rwandese women whose spouses are in the Cabinet.
The group that she leads undertakes conciliatory
activities that bring together widows of the genocide
and other disadvantaged women.
The Voice of America, which once hosted Jeannette, in
a show, has allocated prime air-time for Kinyarwanda
language broadcast in the Great Lakes region. It will
be a live debate and call-in programme on topical
issues related to women and children.
Jeannette has an outstanding proficiency in French,
English and the national languages of Uganda, Kenya,
Burundi and Rwanda. She is currently pursuing a degree
course in Management.
The First Lady likes music, arts and sports.
Ends
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