Retired general Roméo Dallaire delivered a message of optimism and hope to students at Sir George Simpson Jr. High School on Friday afternoon and encouraged them to get more involved in helping their peers abroad.
In 1994, Dallaire commanded the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda during which he campaigned, unsuccessfully, for more peacekeeping troops to help stop the genocide of 800,000 Rwandans over a three-month period.
On Friday, Dallaire opened with a story of his time in Africa when, on an abandoned road one day, he came across a five-year-old boy whose entire family had been killed.
Looking into the boy’s eyes, Dallaire said he couldn’t help but think of his own four-year-old son back in Canada.
“I looked into his eyes as I look in yours and what I saw in the eyes of that boy was exactly what I saw in the eyes of my four-year-old son when I left for Africa,” he said.
“They were the eyes of a human child and they were exactly the same. That little boy in the middle of that war, abandoned, was just as human and just as important as my son is and was back home.”
After a year in Africa, Dallaire returned to Canada a broken man.
In the years that followed, he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, which he said had seared the events of Rwanda into his mind.
He later wrote about the experience in Shake Hands with the Devil: the Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.
“One day, with your influence, we will not have wars, people will not use weapons,” Dallaire told students.
He encouraged them to use the Internet to learn about kids their own age in developing countries, and to see what they might do to make their lives better.
“See how they’re living, how you can participate in giving them half the chance you have here,” Dallaire said.
“The web is an extraordinary instrument to communicate with the world, so use it.”
Dallaire also told students to think about Canada’s 150th birthday, in 2017, and what they can do to make the country a better place.
“What do you plan to do for the next seven years to make this country better and how this country can make the world better.”
Dallaire is currently working with the Canadian government to help war-affected children.
In Halifax later this month, he will launch Zero Force, an international campaign aimed at eradicating the use of child soldiers.
He said there are about 250,000 child soldiers worldwide.
Before being whisked back to the airport for a flight, Dallaire spent a few minutes speaking with students in the school’s Social Justice Club.
One student in the club, Frances Mulder, said Dallaire’s speech really opened her eyes.
“I think one of the first things that you have to do to help other people is to learn about the situation and I think he definitely touched on those subjects and I really enjoyed it,” she said.
“I think it has definitely changed my outlook on everything. I don’t even know how to explain it,” she added.
“It’s opened my eyes.”
