After surviving genocide, Justine Rukeba Mbabazi is working for change.

Mbabazi is an international lawyer who worked for gender equality in Rwanda. Her speech, “The Long Road to Healing, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation in Rwanda,” will focus on past issues in Rwanda in the 1990s, current events and Mbabazi’s personal story. It is a part of the Jewish Studies Speaker series, and is also sponsored by the Department of Pan-African Studies, Department of Justice Studies and Kent Hillel.

Richard Steigmann-Gall, director of Kent State’s Jewish Studies Program, said the speech is for anyone interested in global issues of ethics, race relations or politics.

“As someone who is a living survivor of genocide, her personal story demonstrates the way in which an individual can effect change,” Steigmann-Gall said. “She not only overcame a tragic personal story but caused change.”

Steigmann-Gall said the Jewish Studies program is sponsoring the speech because the program has broader interests.

“This speech is on issues of social justice, civil rights, and awareness of genocide,” Steigmann-Gall said. “Any socially aware Jewish person makes those issues a part of their consciousness.”

The speech will be at 8 p.m. today in Mbari Mbayo Lecture Hall in Oscar Ritchie Hall.

— April Samuelson