Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

Having founded an orthopedic workshop in Rwanda after the genocide, Ms. Mami Rudasingwa has been working to bring mobility to people with disability so they may walk toward the future. In this session, she will reflect on her 24 years as an activist, and discuss how she discovered her drive and motivation to do her activities. She will also talk about making the impossible possible by having conviction and never giving up as she is no stranger to challenges. Come to listen to her inspiring lecture!

Agenda for the Session

• Introduction of Rwanda, and Mulindi Japan One Love Project
• Achievements up to now
• Drive and challenges of the mission
• Important things to cherish once own direction/value is determined
• Message to participants
• Q&A Session

Speaker’s Profile

Born in 1963 in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture
After graduated from a vocational school specializing in English, she worked in a patent law firm and other companies for 6 years. In 1989, she went to Nairobi, Kenya to study Swahili for 6 months, and while travelling around East Africa, she met Gatera, her now husband and professional partner who has an orthotic limb. She then learnt about the genocide that occurred in Rwanda and the plight of disabled people, leading her to decide to become a prosthetist. In 1992, she became an apprentice at an orthopedic workshop in Yokohama, Japan, where she perfected her craft for the next 5 years to then obtain a national certification as a prosthetist.
She investigated the genocide that occurred in 1995, and founded Mulindi Japan One Love Project with Gatera in 1996. She then established an orthopedic workshop in Kigaki in the following year where she works to make prostheses, foster prosthetic‐making specialists, popularize parasport and provide vocational training to disabled people, etc. She is a recipient of the Mainichi International Exchange Award, the Citizen of the Year Award, the Japanese Foreign Minister's Commendation and the Yomiuri International Cooperation Prize, to name a few.

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Registration Deadline: December 1st, 2020 (Tues) @ 11:00
* Registration after the deadline will not be permitted.