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This spring, George Mason �鶹���� Professor traveled to Rwanda to facilitate workshops for former victims and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan mass genocide.��

“These are people who have extended forgiveness and reconciliation, something many of us might think is surreal or impossible,” said Fuertes, who teaches in the in the . “But this is proof that even against the backdrop of genocide, it’s possible.”

Fuertes, who has a background in conflict analysis and resolution and specializes in trauma healing, has previously traveled to Rwanda in March and November 2024, and has taken students with him on some of his excursions as part of a study-abroad program for which he is the faculty director.��

His most recent trip was in collaboration with the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Protestant �鶹���� of Rwanda (PUR) located in Huye District. Fuertes also connected and collaborated with the grassroots organization, "Light Group" in Remera, and the Aegis Trust, a program component of the Rwanda Genocidal Memorial.��

“It's a different level of learning when students have the opportunity to meet firsthand those who were involved or impacted and are now sharing their stories,” said Fuertes.����

“It is an extremely freeing and life-changing thing for students to experience, especially those who don't necessarily believe in forgiveness or who struggle to forgive.”����

Each semester, Fuertes hosts a panel presentation of Rwandan survivors as part of the learning activities in my graduate courses CONF 695 Praxis of Forgiveness and Reconciliation amid Polarization and CONF 695 Psychosocial Trauma Healing. This spring semester’s panel resulted in increased participation from George Mason students.����

“Knowing that one of the challenges to reconciliation in Rwanda is poverty, students from my trauma-informed and resilience-oriented practice class decided to donate 15 goats to families of both former perpetrators and former victims, now survivors,” said Fuertes.��

Dianne Rambo, BIS in Peacebuilding and Well-Being Studies ’24, has been a federal contractor in the intelligence world for more than 20 years. She came back to George Mason to study the process of healing childhood trauma in adults in hopes of becoming a mental health counselor. ����

“I took [CONF 695 the Praxis of Forgiveness and Reconciliation] with Al, and the course material and experiential learning have really changed the course of my life and career goals,” said Rambo, who met Fuertes at an online workshop for forgiveness and reconciliation.����

Rambo, who is currently a non-degree graduate student in George Mason’s and part of George Mason's Working Group on��Forgiveness and Reconciliation along with Fuertes, traveled to Rwanda with Fuertes for the 14-day winter study-abroad program focusing on genocide, healing, and reconciliation.��

“I met the Rwandans via Zoom panels while in Al’s class. We learned about their stories and it just blew my mind how they were facilitating this reconciliation as a nation and how it transformed their nation from this mass atrocity that happened just a couple decades ago,” said Rambo, who has also traveled to Northern Ireland, Scandanavia, and the Philippines for peace-building missions.��

“�鶹���� program partners facilitated visits to the genocide memorials, and we were able to build a space that felt safe and comfortable. We'd debrief afterward where you can share the intense feelings that you may have experienced. We're seeing really hard things, but we're able to process our emotions,” said Rambo.����

Rambo has been accepted into George Mason's CEHD Counseling degree program and will begin the cohort program this fall.

Rambo, Fuertes, and their program partners also have participants journal and conduct community-building activities.��

“I thought of bringing healing through peace-building because it's not enough just to resolve the conflict,” said Fuertes. “If victimization is not healed, most likely, people may start embracing the victim narrative and eventually become the new perpetrator.”��