Learning for Lasting Peace Starts at Home—How Uburezi Iwacu is Building Rwanda’s Future

By Cyiza Theogene

On this International Day of Education, under the theme “Learning for Lasting Peace,” the world turns its gaze to classrooms, curricula, and coalitions for peacebuilding through education. But in Rwanda, we know that the journey toward lasting peace starts long before a child steps into a classroom. It starts at home, and in the heart of the community.

Uburezi Iwacu,translated as “Homes and Communities” a groundbreaking USAID-funded initiative that is quietly transforming the future of Rwanda by focusing not just on what children learn, but where and how they learn. With nearly 660,000 children reached and over 829,000 parents and caregivers trained, Uburezi Iwacu is not merely an education project it’s a peacebuilding movement rooted in literacy, inclusion, and community resilience.

Connecting Dots to Literacy and Peace…

Peace is not the absence of conflict; it is the presence of understanding, empathy, and the ability to resolve differences through dialogue. And that begins with literacy. A child who can read in their mother tongue—Kinyarwanda—has a foundation not only for academic success but also for critical thinking and civic engagement.

Uburezi Iwacu’s emphasis on Kinyarwanda literacy in the early years is more than a pedagogical decision; it is a cultural and social investment. By building reading clubs (5,478 to date), community libraries, and parent peer support networks across the country, the program cultivates a shared space for learning, dialogue, and healing. Literacy, in this context, becomes a unifying language for peace.

One of Uburezi Iwacu’s most compelling strengths is its embrace of local solutions. By training over 12,000 local and faith-based leaders to promote literacy and inclusion, and by activating platforms like ‘Umuganda wo gusoma’Rwanda’s community work day of literacy,the program doesn’t impose change; it invites communities to own it.

This grassroots model fosters trust, accountability, and sustainability. When parents gather in peer support networks or attend monthly sessions on parenting and learning, they’re not just improving their children’s academic outcomes, they’re building social cohesion and reinforcing community values of respect, responsibility, and mutual care.

Inclusion Is Non-Negotiable

In a world where children with disabilities are often left behind, Uburezi Iwacu insists that peace and progress must include everyone.

The program has developed learning pathways for over 3,600 children with disabilities and distributed over 1,000 adapted books in Braille, tactile formats, and other inclusive modalities.

These actions are not symbolic they are systemic. By equipping over 20,000 parents with skills to support children with disabilities, the program affirms that every child, regardless of ability, deserves the right to learn, dream, and contribute to peace.

Key take home from Rwanda, a standing testimony of power of education towards peace building…

As conflict, misinformation, and hate speech surge globally, Rwanda offers a blueprint rooted in its own post-genocide reconciliation journey: Educate the heart, as well as the mind. Uburezi Iwacu understands that literacy is not only about decoding text, it is about encoding values. It equips children to ask questions, seek truth, express empathy, and resolve conflict without violence.

With every book read aloud by a parent, every community library that opens its doors, and every teacher trained to lead a reading club, Rwanda steps closer to a generation that does not just inherit peace but knows how to sustain it.

On this International Day of Education, let us celebrate learning not as a privilege, but as a powerful force for peace. And let Rwanda’s Uburezi Iwacu remind us that the classroom of change often begins at home.

Theogene Cyiza is a communication Specialist for USAID Homes and Communities project, a project implemented by consortium of three organizations, World Vision Rwanda as Prime, Humanity and Inclusion and Imbuto Foundation as well as the local implementing partners I.e DUHAMIC ADRI,African Evengelical Enterprise and Young Women Christian Association YWCA. He has worked in different International organizations bringing out stories of advocacy for the most marginalized communities in Rwanda and Africa.