OUR COMMUNITY
Part of Ziggy’s Playground in Rwanda
Ziggy’s Playground Family dedicates a playground in Rwanda in memory of their father, a Holocaust survivor. STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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urthering the legacy of their father, Fred “Ziggy” Findling (1930-2019), Darren Findling of Huntington Woods and his sister and brother-in-law, Debbie Findling and Steven Moss of San Francisco, are working with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to fund the construction of “Ziggy’s Playground.” The play area will be part of a new Rwandan affordable housing development that strives to create opportunities and a better quality of life to those who survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide. “My father never had an opportunity to have a play-
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ground because his early childhood was spent in survival mode,” Findling said of how his father survived in Nazi Germany as an orphan on the run until he was brought to the United States, all before he turned 11. “As a child, he was always in survival mode. The creation of Ziggy’s Playground is an opportunity to give back to a community to which I deeply connect with their struggles. The pain that was caused in Rwanda in such a massive, horrific way deeply resonated with my family.” he said. “Most of the world watched but then looked away during the Holocaust. So, when we observed when other
genocides took place in our lifetime, we felt deeply connected.” Ziggy’s Playground is located at See Far Housing in the Rwandan capital of Kigali and is a project of AgahozoShalom Youth Village (ASYV), a project of the JDC and other nonprofit organizations.
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ASYV is the brainchild of the late philanthropist Anne Heyman, who believed the 1.2 million Rwandans orphaned during the genocide could benefit from the creation of a kibbutz-styled youth village modeled after those created in Israel to care for orphaned Holocaust survivors. ASYV opened to its first class in 2008. This summer, Findling and family members will travel to Rwanda for the opening of Ziggy’s Playground and celebrate the graduation of the ASYV class of 2022. So far, $47,000 has been
