Beginning of 2013, the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP) joined other national and international organizations involved in building peace in Rwanda through different educational activities and together they developed the Rwandan Peace Education Program (RPEP).The RPEP primary partners are:
- Aegis Trust; a UK based prevention of genocide charity. Together with Kigali City Council, Aegis established the KGM at the time of the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide. KGM exists as a permanent memorial, a place for Rwandans to grieve their losses and as a centre for social cohesion education. Aegis has successfully partnered in Rwanda with government, international governments and private funders on numerous initiatives.
- Radio La Benevolencija (RLB); RLB is a Netherlands based NGO. It aims at deepening reconciliation and trust in a post-Gacaca Rwanda by using academically researched methodologies to create “knowledge tools” that are presented in media campaigns using entertainment-education to reach audiences that are affected by violence. It broadcasts radio soaps, discussions and educational programmes, in combination with grass roots activities that provide citizens in vulnerable societies with knowledge on how to recognise and resist manipulation to violence and how to heal trauma, encouraging them to be active bystanders against incitement and violence.
- USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, a part of the University of Southern California (USC SF); founded by Steven Spielberg in 1994 to document for future generations the experiences of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust before their voices were lost to time. The Institute works within the University of Southern California and with partners around the world to advance academic scholarship and research, to provide resources and online tools for educators, and to disseminate the testimonies for educational purposes. In addition to preserving the testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust in its Visual History Archive, the Institute works with partner organizations to preserve and disseminate audio-visual testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses in digital formats. Four KGM archive staff members spent two months at the Institute’s Los Angeles facility to learn indexing and archiving techniques and the education staff spent nearly 1-month in residence working with USC SF staff on methods and techniques of using visual history testimony in education. USC SF’s expertise in documenting the Holocaust and other genocides through audiovisual testimony (a process that includes collection, digitization, indexing, preservation, education, and access) has direct synergy with peacemaking in Rwanda. They have additional expertise in digital distribution and platforms, digital archive building, digital preservation, archival methodology, teacher training, development of educational resources and evaluation methodology. The potential combination of Holocaust testimony and Rwandan history for peacemaking delivery in Rwanda will be explored as part of the partnership with USC SF.
- Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP); it is a Rwandan non-governmental organization established in 2001. IRDP contributes to the building of a sustainable peace in Rwanda through participatory action research on topics perceived as key challenges for lasting peace by the population. It promotes the culture of critical thinking through debate and dialogue on issues related to peace, the facilitation of debates and dialogue in a safe and neutral space, constructive dialogue with authorities and key-players in order to influence policies, and sharing experiences with other peace initiatives.
In addition to the beneficiary partners, RPEP has other partners involved in technical issues; those are the Netherlands Institute for Genocide and Holocaust Studies (NIOD), the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and the University of Texas Library (UTL).
The RPEP is a groundbreaking approach to peace education that received financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), which started in July 2013 and will end in June 2016. Aegis Trust is the leading partner of the program
The program is run according to a progress measurement system called the Outcome Mapping. This process identifies key partners the program seeks to influence; those being the partners most likely to deliver desired change. These key actors are referred to as Boundary Partners; four key boundary Partners and one strategic partner have been identified:
- Educators
- Audiences and Visitors
- Decision Makers
- Youth
- Civil society organizations (Strategic)