The Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda: A Resilient Response to Genocide

Presented with the Potomac Community Village

Join Phyllis Lerner as she discusses her experiences teaching at a post-genocide high school in Rwanda.

The Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) in Rwanda is a post-genocide high school for more than 500 orphaned and vulnerable youth.  ASYV was modeled after Yemin Orde, an Israeli youth village established in 1953 to care for orphans of the Holocaust.   This talk will focus on the experiences of our speaker, Phyllis Lerner, during 7 semesters spent in this village, since 2016.  

About our speaker: Phyllis Lerner has been a faculty associate with the Johns Hopkins University School of Education - Teach For America program since 2009. Her background includes work at the California State Department of Education’s Title IX Office and the Los Angeles Educational Equity Center. In her early years of teaching, she was the USA delegate leader to the Children's International Summer Village (CISV) in Sweden. Since then, Phyllis has continued to spiral back to global education efforts including 6 more years with CISV; in Mumbai, India, the area made famous in the film Slumdog Millionaire; in western Thailand's Burmese refugee camps with American Jewish World Service; and in Rwanda.

For adults.

Questions about this program?  Please call Potomac Library at 240-777-0690.

Accommodation Requests

People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing should request English-language captioning or sign-language interpretation at least five days before the library-sponsored program they plan to attend. Contact the Assistant Facilities and Accessibility Program Manager at 240-777-0002 with all other accommodation requests.

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