Alum Dedicated to Helping People of Rwanda
Kelly Christianson, a 2015 Keene State graduate, came to the college to find her passion. Little did she know at that time that it would lead to an unyielding devotion to humanitarian issues in the African country of Rwanda.
After earning two degrees in three majors—elementary education and sociology, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies—the East Longmeadow, MA, native will go back to Rwanda this fall as a member of the Peace Corps. “I connected with the people and I promised them I would go back,” said Christianson.
Encouraged by supportive faculty members, and driven by the need to help people who are still recovering from a genocide that ravaged their country in 1994, Christianson traveled to Rwanda for a service learning trip from May to July 2014 with Keene State sociology professor Dr. Therese Seibert to do service work at a primary school, two orphanages and a Twa village, and to participate in a two-week program at the Peace Building Institute, facilitated by an NGO called Never Again Rwanda (NAR). She also traveled to South Africa for a separate service-learning trip in summer 2013, and returned again in December 2014 to present during the International Network of Genocide Scholars Conference, with Dr. Seibert. During these trips, her devotion to helping people in Rwanda grew.
After returning to Keene State from Rwanda in the summer of 2014, Christianson and Dr. Seibert enlisted the support of campus and community groups to raise awareness of health and human rights issues in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The pair also asked community members to help with building a health care clinic in Rwanda that will deliver needed services to people who do not have access.
“From the moment I met Kelly, she embraced the many opportunities Keene State has to offer, especially with respect to study abroad. If the opportunity did not exist, she simply created it—undaunted in her commitment to bringing education to disadvantaged children in less developed countries,” said Dr. Seibert. “There is no doubt in my mind that this young woman will be an agent of positive change in Rwanda and beyond as she pursues her passion for expanding educational opportunities in less developed countries.
Through gaining new perspectives, and experiencing in person the devastation faced by people in Rwanda, Christianson knew what she had to do after graduation.
“Supportive faculty at Keene State gave me the opportunity to get involved with projects that became my passion,” she said. “That’s the reason why I accomplished everything that I did. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
