Oskaloosa, 12 May 2012

Founded by Quakers in 1873, William Penn University celebrated its largest graduating class to date. With over 300 students, William Penn University celebrated its largest graduating class to date on this sunny Saturday afternoon in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

In her opening remarks, the first female President of the College Dr. Ann Fields reminded the graduating class of Rwanda's remarkable achievement in the past decades pointing out its high number of women parliamentarians.

“Under President Kagame who is known as a public advocate for socio-economic development and self reliance, Rwanda has been cited as an African success story.”

Dr. Ann Fields cited gender equity, women's right to own property and girl's education among many of the   successes of President Kagame's leadership. It was in recognition of these accomplishment and the partnership between William Penn University and Rwanda that Dr. Ann Fields presented President Kagame with the Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Oskaloosa, 12 May 2012

This Saturday May 12^th, William Penn University (WPU) will welcome President Kagame for the commencement address. President Kagame will be addressing a class of 370 students and will be receiving the Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters (D.H.L)- the only honorary degree given this year.

With its long standing partnership between the youth of Rwanda and its educational institutions, the university set in small town Oskaloosa, Iowa is much closer to Rwanda than their geographical locations may suggest. Three Rwanda students will be graduating in Pre-professional Biology, Industrial technology and Information & Computer Science- fields that are sure to contribute to Rwanda's development.Jean Chrysostome Bikomeye,a graduate in biology, chemistry and physics will also be one of the student speakers. He is the first of his family to get a university degree. “

My family is excited and when I return to Rwanda, I will be working on innovation to increase production of farmers,” he says.

Addis Ababa 10, May 2012

Before the official opening of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Addis, President Kagame today met with 32 Global shapers – a global network of local communities set up one year ago by the WEF to engage in its events and activities.

Local communities are called hubs, globally there exists 157 hubs with more than 1200 members. Global shapers have representatives in Sub-Saharan Africa consisting of 38 hubs and an additional 12 from North Africa. The leaders are under the age of 30 and gather on a regular basis to engage in activities and projects to benefit their local environments.

President Kagame Expressed his gratitude to the leaders and urged them to have self-belief, inorder to handle tasks that will shape the continent.

“This gathering of Global Shapers from our continent gives me great hope of the direction our continent is taking and I think a lot is going to happen in the basis of your efforts as young people who feel its their responsibility to handle tasks and place Africa where it wants to be. It’s very encouraging. Thank you for that. "If I can be real with you and speak about my own situation, the challenges I have faced; having to build a country from scratch there are two things we have to do or encourage. To be a good leader, there has to be a clear message; definition of a problem, how to deal with the problem and a demonstration to show what needs to be done and then, put systems in place to keep people accountable. Never leave things to chance. I learn a lot of things as I go along. I think it is important to emphasize to young people to never assume that you know, always assume that you don’t know. Always listen and learn.’’