This week Rotarians learn about our International Projects and Grants’ Amahoro project, led by Rotarian Dr. Bill Timpson.  “Amahoro” is the Kirundi word for peace, and the project is a partnership between RCFC, a newly formed Rotary Club in Ngozi, Burundi, CSU, and the University of Ngozi.  Project lead Dr. Timpson will be introduced by Henry Weisser.

Founded in 1999 with a commitment to peace and reconciliation, the University of Ngozi (UNG) is a uniquely situated laboratory for peace-building and sustainable development.  Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world, emerging from colonization and forty years of violence. Recent conflicts threaten sixteen years of stability but conditions in the region of Ngozi have remained peaceful.   The Amahoro Project hopes to help lead the way.

Using this grant, the University is helping Burundi (1) recover and rebirth spirit, (2) reconcile wounds, differences, rivalries, prejudices, and hatreds, (3) understand the truth of the past, fix the present, and prepare for a better future; and (4) reinforce the resilience needed to rebuild an impoverished, post-colonial nation.

 

Rotarian Dr. William M. Timpson is Professor of Education at CSU.  After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in American History from Harvard University, he taught junior and senior high school in the inner city of Cleveland, Ohio before completing his Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since then he has directed faculty development efforts at three different research universities and written extensively on K-20+ instructional effectiveness, improvement and innovation as well as best methods for teaching complex and compelling issues.

In 1981 Timpson was awarded a three-year Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship. In 2006 he served as a Fulbright Specialist in peace and reconciliation studies at the University of Ulster’s UNESCO Centre in Northern Ireland and again in 2011 at the University of Ngozi in Burundi, East Africa. In Spring 2014 he served as a Fulbright Teaching Scholar at Kyung Hee’s Graduate Institute of Peace Studies in South Korea.