Newtown Helps Rwanda
In 1994 over 1,000,000 Rwandan Tutsis were killed by their neighboring Hutus within 100 days. Over 1,000,000 children were orphaned in one of the world's worst tragedies in history.
In December of 2012 JT Lewis lost his little brother, Jesse Lewis in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. Reeling from this personal tragedy he had the opportunity to Skype with orphan genocide survivors who had heard about the shooting and wanted to reach out to JT. During the Skype call they told him that they were so sorry about what had happened to his brother and they shared their personal experiences of heartbreak where they watched many of their family members die. They told JT that through gratitude, forgiveness and compassion they have healed and are now leading lives filled with hope and joy. This started JT on his own healing journey and inspired him to give back to the people from around the globe that had reached out to him in love.
Knowing that these now young adults had no hope of going to college, JT set out to raise money to make their dreams come true. Several months after he began fundraising he was able to Skype back to the same group and announce that he had raised enough money to send one of them to college for a year. He has made the personal commitment to send this person to college for the remaining 3 years and hopes to do more.
JT Lewis is is inspired by genocide survivors in Rwanda but also by someone a lot closer to home, his mother, Scarlett Lewis. Scarlett Lewis, author of Nuturing, Healing Love and Rose's Foal, is the Founder of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation. The foundation collaborates with professional educators to bring lasting meaning to Jesse’s murder by developing school-based educational programs to change our current culture of violence to one of safety, peace and love for everyone in our world.
JT is also working with Jane Ekayu, Executive Director of Children Of War - Uganda, helping to raise money to build self sustaining fish ponds for former children soldiers. These young girls and boys have been forcefully taken from their parents, brutalized, forced to be soldiers and sex slaves and are now home, sometimes with children of their own, trying to establish lives. These fish ponds will enable them to not only feed themselves but will provide fertilizer for crops, industry and hope. JT is working with a well established company already building ponds in Uganda and other war torn areas.
Location
Sandy Hook, CT, USA
