Floriane Robins-Brown, executive director and CEO of a Rwandan orphanage project opens Lawrence University 2009-10 Social Justice Series Tuesday, Oct. 27 at 5 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center Hurvis Room with the presentation “Nibakure Children’s Village – Hope for Orphans in Rwanda.” The event is free and open to the public.
A Rwandan native who moved to the United States in 1988, Robins-Brown began organizing a team of people for the NCV project in 2004. Now a registered non-profit organization both in Rwanda and the United States, the NVC received 23 acres of land from the Rwandan government and has begun construction on a village of family-style homes to house 150 children.
During the 1990s, Rwanda experienced severe ethnic violence between the Hutus majority and the Tutsi minority. In a span of 100 days in the spring of 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed — approximately 10% of the population — leaving thousands of children orphaned.
The NCV has joined the Rwandan government, non-governmental organizations and several individuals in the process of rebuilding and providing support for orphans.
The Social Justice Lecture Series is sponsored by the Lawrence University Volunteer and Community Center and brings guest speakers to campus to discuss contemporary social justice issues such as Wisconsin’s school funding crisis and asylum for battered women of the world.
