Immaculee Rwandan Scholarship Fund

Giving > Immaculee Rwandan Scholarship Fund

We hope that you had an opportunity to attend Immaculee Ilibagiza’s presentation at our campus. We had close to 3,000 individuals attend this event. Her inspiring story of hope and forgiveness touched us all. In honor of Immaculee, we have set up a scholarship fund to benefit Rwandan students. If you would like to donate towards this fund, please click here.

More About Immaculee

As a part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration, Walsh University was honored to welcome international author and one of world’s leading speakers on peace, Immaculee Illibagiza. In 1994, Immaculée Ilibagiza, a college student visiting home for the Easter holiday, sought refuge in a minister’s home with six women, just hours before a murderous frenzy unleashed in Rwanda. Urged to hide by her devout Catholic father, Immaculee and the six women huddled in a rarely used bathroom, hidden not only from intruders but also from the minister’s large family. The tiny room measured only three feet by four feet. The women took turns standing and lived off of scraps from the minister’s table.

Those responsible for the violence, the Hutus, repeatedly returned to the minister’s home, calling and taunting Immaculee by name as they searched. Hunted by her former neighbors, unable to speak and barely able to move, Immaculee found solace in her Catholic faith, immersing herself in prayer on the red and white rosary given by her father just hours before she went into hiding.

As an internationally acclaimed author, Immaculee is a Tutsi survivor of the genocide that swept Rwanda from April to July 1994, when ordinary Hutu citizens rose up against their ethnic rivals, the Tutsi people. More than 800,000 people were killed during those 100 days. Nearly all of Ilibagiza’s family - including her father, mother and two brothers – were among those murdered.

Today, Immaculée is regarded as one of the world’s leading speakers on peace, faith, and forgiveness.

Immaculée’s first book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust was released in March of 2006. Left to Tell quickly became a New York Times Best Seller. To date it has been translated into fifteen languages worldwide. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, CNN, EWTN, The Aljazeera Network, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsday, and many other domestic and international outlets. She was recently featured in Michael Collopy’s “Architects of Peace” project, which honored legendary people like Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. She has been recognized and honored with numerous humanitarian awards including The Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Reconciliation and Peace in 2007.

See Immaculee’s story from 60 Minutes - Click here.