Speaker: Phyllis Lerner

This event is open to the public. For more information about the Lifelong Learning Institute, Manassas, visit lli-manassas.org 

“Agahoza” is a KinyaRwandan word for a “place where tears are dried.” “Shalom” is the Hebrew word for “hello,” “goodbye,” and “peace.” Planting seeds of hope in a soil of human suffering, the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village opened in 2008. More than 500 orphaned and vulnerable teenagers live there in homes run by “Mamas,” Rwandan women who lost family members, sometimes entire families, in the genocide. Though South African founder Anne Heyman died in 2015, the school continues to thrive. In this class, you will find out what, how, and why through photos, stories, music, and heartfelt humor, as Phyllis Lerner brings the Village to us!

Phyllis Lerner has been a faculty associate with the Johns Hopkins University School of Education —Teach for America program since 2005. In her early years of teaching, she was the USA delegate leader to the Children’s International Summer Village (CISV) in Sweden. Since then, Phyllis has continued to spiral back to global education efforts, including six more years with CISV in Mumbai, India, the area made famous in the film Slumdog Millionaire, and in western Thailand’s Burmese refugee camps with American Jewish World Service. Phyllis is best described by the titles she cherishes from eight semesters with ASYV-Rwanda: Auntie and Teacher. Her recent return to Maryland offers up and down global perspectives from the land of 1000 hills.