Jennifer Capraru filming Shake Hands with the Devil in Rwanda. (Courtesy)

Patrick Faller
AE Reporter

Humber will remember the 16th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide on Wednesday when theatre director and human rights advocate Jennifer Capraru is a guest speaker at the Robert Gordon Lecture Series.
Capraru, a native of Montreal now living in Toronto, is the founder of Isoko, an organization in Kigali that stages plays to encourage social harmony in the African nation.
“I hope to use theatre as a tool for social change and help the peace process there,” said Capraru. “The 1994 genocide comes up every day. For many people in Rwanda, it seems like it was yesterday.”
The artistic director of Theatre Asylum — a production company that brings plays about women and human rights issues to Canadian stages. Using theatre to bring attention to these issues interested her, Capraru said.
She first went to Rwanda to work as a script supervisor on the film Shake Hands with the Devil, about Senator Roméo Dallaire’s experience as UN force commander during the genocide.
“I went there in 2006, but in a way I went there in 1994, because that’s what we were living every day,” she said.
She returned to Rwanda in 2008 to stage the Governor General Award-winning play The Monument.
“I picked the play because I think it touches on the theme of how can one forgive after genocide,” she said.
Humber politics professor Chris Irwin was on the committee that selected Capraru to speak.
“I thought her experiences trying to help communities work through some very deep wounds would be interesting,” said Irwin.
“When we talk about genocide, we rarely talk about what happens after it. I will be encouraging my students to go and hear her.”
General education co-ordinator and lecture series chair Jason Galea said it is necessary to have Canadians, like Capraru, speak at Humber.
“There are many people here who have a connection to genocide around the world and it’s the kind of topic that I think it’s important to discuss,” he said.
Capraru will speak about her experiences in Rwanda at 11:45 a.m. at Lakeshore Campus in room A170 on Wed. April 7.