Beyond The Veil Mission involves promoting education about the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsis in Rwanda. It took more than 23 years for the United Nations to finally recognize the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. 

Our Founder, Lydia Nimbeshaho, has shared her story as a survivor Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum; Rwandans now Living in Ontario reflects on 25 years since the Genocide Against The Tutsi. She continues to share her concerns about how difficult it is to create appropriate mental health services for Rwandans living in Canada to help them heal from trauma while the Canadian news or academic field continues to be dominated by information that denies their experiences. Beyond The Veil aims to close this gap by continuing to educate our community about the history of the genocide against the Tutsis through Get Beyond Programming. In addition, we seek to promote the yearly educational mission to Rwanda with our team to highlight how the genocide against the Tutsi impacted Rwandans. Canadians can learn from Rwandans how to improve services to refugees of war, genocide, and violence. 

Why the Educational Mission is Important

The genocide against the Tutsis is not just Rwandan – but global history. The world watched for 100 days, people being killed every day – and took no action. Over one million Tutsis were murdered during that time. What is the lesson the Canadian government can learn from there? The Canadian government is responsible for promoting education about the genocide against the Tutsi in schools and also creating policies that criminalize all genocide denials and ideologies. Genocide denials promote future genocides. Many survivors we serve spend their time fighting genocide denials rather than taking the time to heal in Canada – a home to many immigrants and refugees. 

The annual trip to Rwanda targets those serving in the human rights sectors, mental health practitioners, social workers, politicians, activists, and students.  Canada can learn from Rwanda what racial and ethnic discrimination can do to a country if no action is taken. Participants can also learn about Rwandan history and how reconciliation and peace pave the path to empower strong communities.  You can not only prevent genocide, but its impact will take a lifetime to fix. 

Before the Genocide against the Tutsi, the world witnessed at least four genocides: the Holocaust, the Holodomor, Cambodian, and Armenian, but the United Nations could not prevent thegenocide against the Tutsis of 1994, which was planned for many years. No lessons were learned from the  genocide against the Tutsi, as since then, several countries have experienced unending conflicts, wars, refugees, and rapes. 

We need the government of Canada to support these educational trips as they will improve services provided to war, genocide, and rape refugees. In addition, we must ensure that everyone working to support our community include consultants from the Rwandan community to ensure the credibility of information being used to create services or raise awareness, especially in the work of healing trauma. 

To launch this educational mission trip to Rwanda, our board voluntarily self-founded the first trip. In July 2022, three of our directors visited Rwanda to learn more about the history of the genocide against the Tutsi

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