Coexist: A Documentary

Proposal

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Mission: Humanize

Coexist engages students to rehumanize their enemies as an effective way to change the structures that allow conflict to happen. Boston-based project director Adam Mazo successfully led his team to complete the first two phases of Coexist. Raising $50,000 for phase one, the team researched, developed and tested teaching media and methods. With the continued support of generous foundations and individuals, for phase two the team raised $40,000 to document stories of Rwandan genocide survivors struggling to live side by side with killers. In Rwanda, we witnessed progress and pain as families try to move forward while confronting their horrific past. We met Pacifique, a young mother who cooks food for a killer, Theosphore, while he works with a team of released prisoners to build her a house. When Pacifique learned Theosphore killed her brother and sister during a workshop designed to encourage reconciliation, she was shocked, “I felt like someone who was electrocuted. I was astonished and I became afraid and I was shaking,” Pacifique said in an interview, holding her 2 year old daughter.

Survivors like Agnes now work regularly with wives of killers, preparing food for reconciliation workshop participants in the rural Kirehe district in Eastern Rwanda. After seeing her husband’s chopped up body, being raped herself, and infected with AIDS, Agnes spent months in a mental health facility. Agnes credits reconciliation seminar facilitators with giving her strength to forgive, “If you commit a crime against me and ask for forgiveness, I forgive you. Because the crime is your crime and you are responsible for it,” the widow and caretaker to 8 children said in an interview. Despite being attacked and hospitalized again last year for encouraging others to transform their relationships from adversarial to accepting, Agnes continues advocating for reconciliation.

But killings continue raising fears. Domitilie was widowed and left to raise 8 children when her husband Paul was killed in 2007. She says he was killed for leading a village court set up to try genocide offenders. Domitilie lives in fear in the provincial city of Huye, “For sure there’s no peace in Rwanda, cause the victims are still in danger. The hands that killed still have the intention to kill once again,” she told us. But Domitilie still hopes for improvement, “My feeling is that here in Rwanda we really want peace.”

Why Rwanda Can Help Our Communities

We will explore the impact these stories have on American students. In phase one preliminary results from Boston Public School students and administrators show we are addressing a paramount concern: reducing dropout rates. Health Careers Academy senior Bendina Remy lives in the Dorchester section of Boston. Analyzing our video during a recent classroom discussion she said, “It… hit home cause I know a lot of gang affiliated people. Because if we could change it in Rwanda we could change it in Boston.”

Who We Are

In association with the non-profit Center for Independent Documentary documentary journalist Adam Mazo and his team are well positioned to tell compelling stories with the power to spark conversations in classrooms, community centers, and houses of worship. The Coexist international Advisory Board includes experts with decades of experience in multiple disciplines: conflict resolution, preventative diplomacy, genocide studies, Rwanda, community organizing and outreach, filmmaking, fundraising, and website building.

Improving Our Communities and Our World

In addition to our growing relationship with Boston Public Schools, Facing History and Ourselves is interested in working with Coexist to introduce the project to its network of 50,000 teachers. We are partnering to develop a dialogue and action guide to create opportunities for students to take lessons learned beyond the classroom. We are building relationships with community groups and politicians, including the Boston Mayor’s office to create neighborhood and community events in order to inspire conversations and actions to create sustainable conflict management and peace-building activities. UNESCO will distribute the film to its partners network.

Transformational Moments, Sustainable Impact

In our documentary, we will see seminars and hear from organizers about the value of what they describe as transformational moments in forgiveness, as the Rwandan Founder of REACH, Philbert Kalisa said, “It is a long process but once somebody has managed to forgive, you can see that he changes. His heart is transformed. He doesn’t look sad. He has a peace.” The emotionally vivid experiences where survivors begin to see the other as human again result from the culmination of days, sometimes weeks of teaching, training, and counseling in seminars run by organizations like REACH (Reconciliation Evangelism And Christian Healing). Projects continue nearly 10 years later, organizers say this is a strong indication that they are maintaining peace.

We are working to secure $42,000 to complete our hour-long film so that we may share our work and make the world more peaceful. Throughout this process we will continue bringing our project into schools while assessing the impact of our efforts. We will hire independent evaluators to investigate if the documentary is 1) an effective teaching tool and 2) prompting any action. Our ultimate goal is to prevent conflict by incorporating humanizing curricula into schools in the U.S, as one student said, if a country that suffered genocide can improve, there’s hope for us.

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