Between April and June of 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the span of 100 days in this small central African country. The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994. Most of the dead were Tutsis and those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus. Thousands more were raped, tortured and beaten. The international community failed to stop the crimes. Foundation Rwanda’s mission is to provide funding for the secondary school education of children born from rape during the 1995 genocide, link their mothers to existing psychological and medical support services and create awareness about the consequences of genocide and sexual violence through photography and new media. 

Jules Shell
Shell is co-founder and executive director of Foundation Rwanda. She worked as creative director at the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and Reboot, a not-for-profit looking at generational shifts in identity and community before leaving to help start Foundation Rwanda in 2006. She is the co-author of Bar Mitzvah Disco (Crown, November 2005), a collection of photographs and essays on the evolution of meaning, style, ritual, and music as told through bar and bat mitzvah photographs of the 70’s and 80’s and Camp Camp (Crown, June 2008) a collection of photographs and essays about coming of age at summer camp in America. Shell shot the video for Foundation Rwanda’s short film “Intended Consequences” which was recently nominated for an Emmy