Consolee Nishimwe (born 11 September 1979) is a Rwandan author, a motivational speaker, and a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Background

Nishimwe was born on 11 September 1979 in

Rubengera Rubengera is a community in Rwanda, part of the Mabanza commune. It is the capital of Karongi District in Western Province, Rwanda. Rubengera lies in the western mountains of Rwanda between Lake Kivu and the divide that separates the catchment ...

Kibuye, Rwanda Kibuye is a city in Karongi District, and the headquarters of the Western Province in Rwanda. Location The city lies on the eastern shores of Lake Kivu, between Gisenyi and Cyangugu, approximately , by road, west of Kigali, the capital and larg ...

. Her mother, Marie-Jeanne Mukamwiza, and father, Andre Ngoga were both primary school teachers. They met in 1972 and married in August 1977. Nishimwe is the eldest of five children. She speaks English and

Kinyarwanda Kinyarwanda, Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is a Bantu language and a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is spoken in Rwanda and adjacent parts of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda (where there ...

Rwandan genocide

Nishimwe was 14 when the Rwandan genocide began in April 1994. The family took refuge in a Muslim area for protection but her father and aunt were killed on 15 April 1994. A week later, her three brothers, 16-month-old Bon-Fils Abimana, 7-year-old Pascal Muvara, and 9-year-old Philbert Nkusi, were murdered. Her grandparents and uncles were also killed. Nishimwe fled and hid for three months, enduring torture and other hardship, including sexual assault which resulted in

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

infection. Her mother, Marie-Jeanne, and sister, Jeanette Ingabire, survived. By the end of the genocide, 90% of the Tutsis in their town had been killed.

Activism

In 2001, Nishimwe moved to the United States where she became a human rights activist and motivational speaker. In 2012, she published a memoir, ''Tested To The Limit: A Genocide Survivor's Story Of Pain, Resilience And Hope''. In 2014, she spoke at the

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

symposium on the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. In 2018, she addressed the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

Personal life

Nishimwe now lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Bibliography

*''Tested To The Limit: A Genocide Survivor's Story Of Pain, Resilience And Hope'' (2012)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nishimwe, Consolee Rwandan human rights activists 1979 births Living people Rwandan women Tutsi people Women motivational speakers People of the Rwandan genocide Rwandan emigrants to the United States