Hyppolite Ntigurirwa offers MLK Day Talk for Hopkinton Community

Author/Survivor of Rwanda Genocide and Yale Fellow Hyppolite Ntigurirwa offers MLK Day Talk for Hopkinton Community

January 17th, 2021


On Sunday, January 17th, Peace-Builder Hyppolite Ntigurirwa of Rwanda spoke with the Hopkinton Community as part of the town's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Due to the continuation of COVID-19 pandemic and health restrictions, Hyppolite provided a pre-recorded talk for viewers via Livestream/Youtube made possible by HCAM-TV in Hopkinton, MA.

This talk was hosted by The Islamic Masumeen Center of New England who organized a virtual MLK Day Remembrance Ceremony for the Hopkinton community that included performance by a children's choir and other guest speakers including Massachusetts State Representative Carolyn Dykema. Hyppolite's feature talk was coordinated by The Hopkinton Freedom Team and made possible by The Vineyard Church and Hopkinton Youth and Family Services. 


Hyppolite's Feature Talk for Hopkinton's Annual Day of Remembrance and Service for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. January, 2021. Click here to watch his talk.

As guest feature, he was asked to share his story of becoming a peace-builder in Rwanda and subsequently in the world beyond. Hyppolite offered a 20 minute powerful delivery of words that shared some of the traumatic details of his childhood memories of the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi people. This included the killing of his own father and many other family members. In his later teen years, Hyppolite shared how after a childhood of deep, ongoing trauma, he considered the possibility of taking action to avenge his memories of the genocide. However a series of circumstances led him to decide to not only take an alternate course and live life as a pacifist, but to also become an eventual spokesperson/activist of peace and peace-builder as well. Some of his subsequent work includes artist, researcher, and founder of Be the Peace, an organization focused on promoting cross-generational healing and halting the intergenerational transmission of hate. In 2019, Hyppolite envisioned and conducted the “Be the Peace Walk,” a 100-day walk across the country in commemoration of 25 years since the end of the genocide. Additionally he served as an international Artist in Residence with Arts Connect International in 2016 and worked as an arts program manager for the British Council in Rwanda from 2016–2020. Hyppolite joined Yale University as a Greenberg World Fellow in 2020 and continues as a Research Fellow at the Schell Center for International Human Rights.

Hyppolite's new book A Boy Called Hyppo was just made available for pre-order on Amazon. The book takes a reader on the journey of Hyppolite's experiences of growing up in Rwanda, surviving the genocide against the Tutsi at the age of seven, forgiving the killers, and the search for peace.







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