Paul Rukesha

Dynamic indexing expert and seasoned digital content creator with over a decade of proficiency in developing and managing archives. A motivated leader known for training and mentoring emerging talents, adept at fostering collaborative knowledge-sharing within the realm of digital archives. Demonstrated ability to navigate the evolving landscape of information organization, ensuring efficient and effective archival practices.

• SPECIAL PROJECTS COMMISSIONED TO AEGIS TRUST2018: Coordinator of ‘Rwandan Stories of Change’ project in Rwanda
• It is a 39-month research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and based at the University of St Andrews in Scotland
• The project investigates the ways in which individual Rwandan people have adjusted and reconstructed their lives in the years since the genocide
• Coordination work consisted of supervising transcription and translation work of the 27 audio-visual testimonies that will feature in the book.2015: worked with the Office of the President (OTP) of the Republic of Rwanda on an archival project
• Trained and supervised indexing and cataloguing work of their audio-visual collection.2016: worked with the National Archives of Rwanda (NAR) on its collection
• Supervised and trained catalogers and indexers who indexed 1,8 million of pages
• PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
• January-March 2014: team leader at the workshop on the Video indexing methodologies (part II), at the University of Southern California (USC) - Shoah Foundation, in Los Angeles, USA
• October-December 2011: participated in a workshop on Video indexing methodologies (part I), at the University of Southern California (USC) - Shoah Foundation, in Los Angeles, USA
• CONFERENCES – 4 July 2019: attended and spoke at the International Educational Conference Auschwitz - "Never Again!" - Really
• Organised by International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust (ICEAH) in Poland.– 28 June 2019: attended and spoke at the 2019 Third Annual Memory Studies Association (MSA) Conference hosted at Complutense University in Madrid, Spain.July 2018: participated in an event “Rwanda After 1994: Stories of Change” at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK
• Discussed archival work at the Genocide Archive of Rwanda (GAR), and its impact.27 June 2018: participated in UNESCO first-ever consultation in Africa on implementing the Recommendation on safeguarding documentary heritage.5th April 2018: Fourth International Meeting "Memory as a tool for citizenship education"
• UNESCO Chair meeting "Extremisms, radicalizations and relation to truth", Aix-en-Provence, France.3rd December 2017: speaker at the round table: Media and Mass Atrocity: the Rwanda Genocide and Beyond, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.h September 2017: presented a paper “Digital Archives in a Changing Rwanda” at the SCOLMA Annual Conference 2017
• (https://scolma.org/tag/digitisation/)t March 2017: Third international meeting of memorials and memorial institutions "memory put to the service of citizenship education", at the Camp des Milles Foundation-Memory and Education, Aix-En-Province, France.27 September 2016: “The challenges of translating memory-Archiving the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda”, a paper presented at the University College of Cork, Ireland.27 March 2016: “On the Genocide against the Tutsi: The Distortion of the Narrative” a paper presented at the international conference on Genocides and Language
• This conference took place on March 18th and 19th, 2016, at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario)
• October 2014: participated in the Consortium workshop on project planning of the Gacaca Archive Project, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• December 2012: attended the conference on ‘Recording genocide in Rwanda: challenges and strategies in preserving moving image documentation’, at the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), Seattle, Washington (USA)
• FILM PRODUCTION
• Co-Producer of the film “Ubumuntu” (Humanity), 2013, by the Aegis Trust in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation
• This film was a story about a young Hutu girl who was just 10 years old during the genocide, yet who managed to save the life of a Tutsi baby girl of 10 months whose mother had been killed during the genocide while attempting to flee the country
• Co-Producer of the film “Words that Kill”, 2013, by the Aegis Trust in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation
• The film talks about how hate propaganda was used during the Holocaust and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda to mobilize a lot of people to commit atrocities
• Co-Producer of the film “Two hills’ story”, 2014, by the Aegis Trust
• The film features the journey of unity and reconciliation of a small village in southern part of Rwanda after the genocide
• Consultant to the film the 600: The Soldiers' Story, by Richard Hall and Annette Uwizeye
• The little-known story of a surrounded battalion of 600 men and women that started the counterattack to end the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Paul RUKESHA