“Looking around, I made sure our neighbors saw that I was not leaving. If anyone had ideas about breaking into our home and going after Anitha, the young lady who worked for us, or Janvier, our young night watchman, I would be there. I didn’t know what I would do if we were attacked, but I would be there. Going back inside our home, I could see the fear on the faces of Anitha and Janvier. Their ID cards both had the word ‘Tutsi’ on them, classifying them among Rwanda’s minority tribe. But now it was more than simply a tribal designation—it marked them for extermination,” Carl Wilkens wrote in his book, I’m Not Leaving.
April 7, 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, a mass slaughter which took the lives of over 800,000 people. Humanitarian aid worker Carl Wilkens was the only American to stay in Rwanda during this historic event.
Foregoing the opportunity to leave and seek safety, Wilkens remained in Rwanda and became separated from those he loved the most, his family, who joined the exiting convoy and departed without him. Carl Wilkens’ decision to stand up against racism and injustice in the face of extreme and imminent danger exemplifies the essence of courage, one of the TAS core values.
“I can’t think of anybody who would be so courageous that he would potentially sacrifice his life or was willing to stay in a situation where there was no answer to whether he was going to be safe or not and really sacrifice for others,” said upper school Social Studies teacher Ms Sinclair who had the opportunity to meet Mr Wilkens at an MUN conference in Qatar. “Although he doesn’t see himself as a hero, his actions and how he tried to navigate through the challenges of living in Rwanda during the genocide are an example of how many of us could also lead our lives and how we act and treat others.”
On April 15-17, Carl Wilkens will visit TAS to recount the powerful, compelling real-life tales that inspired his book. He will expand on the extraordinary choices he made, driven by courage and human compassion, during what has been called the most tragic one hundred days of the 20th century.
For more information on promoting tolerance, check out his non-profit organization, World Outside My Shoes. Its mission is to help people to understand what Wilkens calls “the world of ‘The Other.’”