News
‘It was not an easy journey, but I made it’
Play audio version
Attorney Jean Claude Ngabonziza and His Work in Disability Rights in Rwanda
September 22, 2021
*** Content warning regarding genocide
KIGALI, Rwanda — Jean Claude Ngabonziza was only four years old when the 1994 Rwandan genocide began. Ngabonziza describes what he thinks he knew was happening at the start of the genocide. “… I could see that everyone was so worried,” he says. “My mother kept us in the house and was always praying and crying. They could not let us out to play, and my dad was no longer going to the fields. I was young, but I believe I was scared, too.”
After a period of hiding and trying to survive, Ngabonziza and his family were bombarded with grenades that left him with blindness. His mother, the only other surviving family member, enrolled him in HVP (Home of Virgin of the Poor), a school for children with disabilities in Gatagara, and later the Gahini Secondary School after the genocide.
Today, Jean Claude Ngabonziza is a lawyer working with UWEZO Youth Empowerment, an organization supporting youth with disabilities. UWEZO Youth Empowerment is under the umbrella cohort of the National Union of Disability Organizations of Rwanda. Since graduating from the School of Law at the University of Rwanda-Huye Campus with academic distinction, he has worked with many organizations, especially those supporting youth with disabilities. “It was not an easy journey but I made it,” Ngabonziza says. Since 2012, he has been a member of the Rwandan Union of the Blind, where he has been advocating for access to white canes for Rwandans with vision impairments.
Ngabonziza was born in 1990. Both his parents were farmers. He was raised in Kigali, in the Gasabo District and Ndera Sector. He says his family had a lot of expectations for him as their firstborn and only son in his nuclear family. He is grateful to his mother, especially for the role she played in his educational journey. Ngabonziza says, “If it was not for my mother who, instead of keeping me in the backyard, chose to take me to school, which was not an easy task for her with all the difficulties and poverty that was there after the [genocide]. She was having her own problems of trauma and post-war issues of losing her husband and family, but she fought for her son. I cannot thank her enough.”
When asked what makes him thrive, he says, “I do not limit myself. I try everything that I can do, put in more work than others. I make sure that I am satisfied with my work, which is not an easy task to achieve.”
Rose Umutesi is a 2021 DJP Fellow and chairperson of the National Organization of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry in Rwanda (NOUSPR) and co-founder and treasurer of its umbrella organization, the National Union of Disabilities Organizations of Rwanda (NUDOR). @2021 NOUSPR. All rights reserved.
News From the Global Frontlines of Disability Justice
Inclusive Care
For decades, Rwandans with disabilities faced significant challenges to accessing health care. Now the country has embarked on an ambitious plan to renovate all of its outdated facilities, with accessibility as a priority. Thirty health centers have been updated so far, changing stairs into ramps, adding Braille signage and more. “Having access to health services to persons with disability in Rwanda is like dreams that we all wish to be true,” says Aimable Irihose of the Rwanda Organization of Persons with Physical Disabilities and Wheelchair Users.
From Stage to Society
Terubeimoa (Ruby) Nabetari has been using the skills she learned as a composer of music and drama to help her organization, Te Toa Matoa, get their messages across about the rights of persons with disabilities in Kiribati. When she first became disabled from an accident, “I felt sad and confused … because I was well-known as a person who composed music and drama in my country,” she says. “But as time went on, I thanked God that I changed my mind and started to realize what I have to offer people with disabilities.”
‘Count Me In, In Any Change You Make’
DJP Fellow Melvina Voua is advocating for the full inclusion of Solomon Islanders with disabilities in all aspects of climate change adaptation and mitigation. “When the crisis or the disaster happen, we always find it difficult to evacuate or access or even get prepared or respond,” she says. “All … plans must be inclusive and not excluding people with disability, like when designing evacuation centers or developing policies for climate change or disasters.”
Pacific Myth As a Catalyst For Disability Justice
DJP Fellow Ari Hazelman is drawing on his region’s rich storytelling history to further the cause of disability rights. “When we think about our myths and legends that we have in our Pacific culture, that’s part of the stories that we grow up with,” he says. “So when you put it to the disability field, using the stories that we can document through the knowledge that we learn in this [DJP] workshop will help us to tell our stories and use those stories to make a positive change in our society.”
Read more about Pacific Myth As a Catalyst For Disability Justice
LGBTQI + People with Disabilities Should Not Be Left Behind
DJP Fellow Isoa Nabainivalu is a Deaf disability rights advocate for his country of Fiji. Since 2019, he has been focusing on advocating for the rights of one of the more marginalized groups in the Pacific – LGBTQI+ persons with disabilities. “First and foremost for us is for our members to come out, to feel comfortable, to know their rights and know how to use them in different spaces,” he says.
Read more about LGBTQI + People with Disabilities Should Not Be Left Behind
A Disability Rights Champion in the Pacific
Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo is a program officer for the Pacific Island Countries with the Disability Rights Fund. She is a longtime disability rights activist in Samoa. “As an advocate, you get knocked down by things,” she says, “and you keep going because you know that there are other people with disabilities who need a lot of support and who will need you to be paving the way.”