November 27, 1996
Rwandan civil war isn’t just a conflict half way around the world: UW students, staff plan Tuesday benefit concert to aid former student
A group of University of Washington students and staff is coming to the aid of a former UW student living under the constant threat of death in the war-torn African nation of Rwanda.
The Graduate School of Public Affairs and several campus organizations are sponsoring a benefit concert at the Backstage in Ballard Tuesday at 8 p.m. to help raise funds for Jean-Claude Kalinijabo, who is now living in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. Kalinijabo attended the UW’s Graduate School of Public Affairs in 1993-94 on a one-year Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship given by the U.S. State Department.
He has received a potentially life-saving invitation to return to the UW to study for a master of public administration degree. Kalinijabo has received a tuition waiver and has sufficient funds to cover airfare for himself and his family. However, he still must raise about $33,000 to meet requirements to obtain his graduate student visa and non- immigrant visas for his wife and four children. If he doesn’t raise this money, he would have to leave his family in Rwanda, something he doesn’t want to do.
He was in Seattle when the Tutsi-Hutu ethnic civil war broke out in Rwanda. Kalinijabo had no word about the fate of his family for months. Then he received a message that his entire extended family had been killed with the exception of his wife and children. Five months after the war broke out he was notified that his wife and children had been able to flee Rwanda and were living in a refugee camp in neighboring Zaire.
Kalinijabo immediately returned to Africa, was reunited with his family and moved back to Rwanda where he began working with World Vision, an international relief organization. He is a former legal advisor in the Rwandan ministry of communications.
Kalinijabo’s existence in Rwanda is complicated by the fact that he is an ethnic Hutu and his wife, Annonciata, is a Tutsi.
Tuesday’s concert at the Backstage, featuring the groups Crosseyed, Gherkin and Frog Child, is one effort to help raise that money. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the concert starts at 9 p.m. Suggested donation is $6 per person.
Donations to help Kalinijabo also can be made at any Key Bank in the Puget Sound area through the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students. Donors need to specify their gift is for the Rwandan graduate student.
###
For additional information, contact: Vin Talucci, president of the Graduate School for Public Affairs Student Organization, at 543-4900 or 328-2931 (home) Steve Bassett, GSPA student, at 543-4900 Elaine Chang, GSPA assistant dean, at 543-4900. David Fenner, acting director of the office of international. programs and exchanges, 543-9272.
