Speaker visits campus to educate on human rights

About 50 students, faculty and community members attended last Thursday night’s Galaxy Series event in Memorial Hall to listen to guest speaker Sandra Uwiringiyimana talk about human rights and her story of immigration.
Uwiringiyimana, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a human rights activist and the co-founder of the Jimbere Fund, a non-profit working to combat poverty in rural communities in Congo.
She told her story of how she survived a massacre, immigrated to America and finally found her voice.
Uwiringiyimana and her family were forced out of their country in 2004, and settled in America in 2007. She encountered many difficulties and challenges after being resettled in the United States.
“My entire family didn’t speak very much English when we first came to the U.S., so it was a very hard challenge at first,” Uwiringiyimana said.
Uwiringiyimana has now become a voice for other refugees in the U.S.
“Refugees can overcome many challenges when they come to the U.S. by utilizing community outreach,” Uwiringiyimana said.
Uwiringiyimana wrote a book titled “How Dare the Sun Rise” about the challenges she went through and how she overcame them. The book tells her story of survival, and how she used art and activism to overcome her trauma.
“I could relate to everything that Sandra talked about,” Jeff Mugongo, 19, sophomore of Denver, said.
Jeff Mugongo, a student at Chadron State College, immigrated from Rwanda to the U.S. in 2010.
“It was extremely hard to adjust to living here at first. I didn’t know how to read, write, or speak the language,” Mugongo said.
Jeff is a social work major, and he said it was a miracle that he ended up at CSC.
Uwiringiyimana is currently attending college at Mercy College in New York City, where she studies national relations and diplomacy.
“I strongly encourage students to look outside of themselves and to not be individualistic,” Uwiringiyimana said.
Chadron State College’s next Galaxy Series event will be on March 27 at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Hall Auditorium, and will feature a performance by the Cashore Marionettes.