Southern Alumni Magazine Winter 2011

Daniel Ndamwizeye lost four members of his family during the Rwandan genocide. Today the successful Southern student and upcoming entrepreneur has carved out a new life in the U.S. — and has set his sights on helping other orphans succeed.

A Survivor Story

As if he was 5 years old again, Daniel Ndamwizeye, 21, can still hear the screams of his mother as she was beaten todeath, a victim of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that also claimed the lives of his father and two of his sisters.

Minutes before she was murdered outside of a church where several members of the family had sought refuge from machete- and gun-wielding Hutus, Ndamwizeye held his mother’s hand — and felt all the security that personal touch brings.

“It’s the memory that flashes back like it happened yesterday,” Ndamwizeye says of his mother’s slaying. “I never understood the whole thing and I still don’t understand. . . . Sometimes I ask myself why I was saved, and I never get to an answer. It’s just that God saved me from that place, because they could have killed me.”

Over the course of about 100 days, beginningwith the assassination of Rwanda PresidentJuvénal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, atleast 800,000 Rwandan people — Tutsis and Hutu political moderates — were massacred by tens of thousands of Rwanda’s radical Hutus.

Ndamwizeye’s family was caught up in the horror. Radicals told Daniel’s father, a Hutu, to kill his wife, a Tutsi, and his children. He refused. Ndamwizeye learned that he was killed when the radicals burned down the family’s home.

Ndamwizeye also was told that his two sisters were stoned to death when they fled the church where their mother was killed.

More heartbreak followed for Ndamwizeye, who went on to suffer years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of relatives charged with his care after his parents’ deaths.

But Ndamwizeye is a survivor. Six years ago — after finally being issued a visa — he found his way to the United States where he was reunited with his older sister in Bridgeport, Conn.

Ndamwizeye began to shine soon after arriving at Bassick High School at age 15, despite knowing little English and never having had a positive academic experience. Before long he was captain of the volleyball and cross-country teams, vice president of his senior class, and immersed in fundraising for good causes. In his senior year, Ndamwizeye was chosen “Most Likely to Succeed,” “Teacher’s Pet,” and “Best Dressed,” a sweet accolade for a boy who had been taunted by peers in Rwanda for wearing the same torn, faded- green uniform and tattered shoes to school each day.

Determined to earn a college degree, Ndamwizeye enrolled at Southern, where he’s majoring in business administration with a concentration in finance. He spent the summer before his first semester in the Summer Educational Opportunity Program (SEOP), an initiative designed to provide students with an academic boost and prepare them for college life. While he says he probably would have done fine without the extra help, it was a great experience for adjusting and meeting peers.

“I liked the campus area. It reminded me of New York City,” he says of Southern’s New Haven location. “All the people here have been great and supportive.”

Today, he is excelling at Southernwhile simultaneously realizing extraordinary accomplishments outside of the classroom. He’s started his own line of inspirational T-shirts; begun a nonprofit foundation to benefit orphans in less-developed countries; and landed a full-time position in his field at TD Bank. A junior with a full-time course load, he completes his classes before donning a suit and briefcase for work. He recently was promoted to the position of financial services representative.

Ndamwizeye also recently became a United States citizen. “It was a great experience for me because I feel I’ve learned so much here. America has allowed me to be who I want to be,” Ndamwizeye says. “I have a reason to be miserable, but I choose not to be.”

A saying printed on one of his newest T-shirts sums up his philosophy: “You are the key to your own success.”

An entrepreneur at heart, Ndamwizeye hopes his T-shirt line, designed at his direction by another Southern student, Vania Petit-Frere, will put him on the fashion map. But most important, he hopes any financial success will fund his dream of opening orphanages across the globe.

His Daniel Trust line of T-shirts is designed to “inspire through art and words,” says Ndamwizeye, who donates 10 percent of sales to his D-Trust Foundation to benefit orphans. The word “Trust” — which Ndamwizeye sometimes uses as a surname to simplify situations or for speaking engagements — has special significance. Ndamwizeye means, “I trust him” in Kinyarwanda, one of Rwanda’s official languages.

In January, during the winter academic break, Ndamwizeye traveled to Portau-Prince, Haiti, to volunteer at an orphanage run by Child Hope International.

He plans to continue focusing his efforts on assisting orphans in less-developed countries, where he feels the need is greatest.

Although he’s drawn significantly on his own inner strength to excel, Ndamwizeye says he’s had help along the way, especially through scholarships that have funded his education at Southern. One of those sources is the Stewardship Foundation, which provides college scholarships to orphans and young adults from foster and out-of-home care environments who were never adopted. The nonprofit organization’s founder and executive director, Marlon M. Quan, is a successful businessman who was adopted at age 3 in Hong Kong and reared in New York. Quan has said one of the greatest gifts his parents gave him was a college education.

Ndamwizeye shares his belief in theimportance of earning a degree. “I want touse the opportunities I have to help withscholarships [for others] because I feel luckyto have them,” Ndamwizeye says.

Although Ndamwizeye has managed to pull himself through the trauma, the killings of his family and ensuing abuse he faced have left emotional scars along with the physical ones. His legs are scarred from beatings he received after making minor mistakes like breaking a dish he was washing.

It’s still difficult for him to talk about the genocide — even with his siblings, who disagree on various points. Instead, they avoid the subject. The youngest of eight, Ndamwizeye has four surviving siblings — two sisters in the United States and two brothers in Rwanda. Another brother was killed before the genocide when a guitar he was playing was struck by lightning.

Ndamwizeye says genocide was never alked about in middle school in Rwanda. He has tried to research the subject, but the deeper he gets, the more the pain surfaces. He only recently began taking his story public because he wants to educate others. One of his first public speaking ventures was in the classroom of Shirley Jackson, professor of sociology at Southern, who heard Ndamwizeye’s story and invited him to tell it in her class, “Social Problems in the U.S.” Jackson was moved to tears and the class and students left stunned and humbled.

Ndamwizeye, soft-spoken and determined, continues to tell his story. He also continues to look forward — with plans in place to further his fashion business and charitable outreach efforts. “Great things take time. I’m patient. I want so many things. They’re not going to happen right away,” he says with conviction.

“You can have it bad and still move on and do something good for others,” he says.“Nothing should stop you from your dreams.”

For more information, go to www.DanielTrust.com