Sources of History

How historians measure time, what counts as evidence about the past, how Rwanda kept its history before writing, and how to judge whether a source can be trusted.

2

Evolution of Humankind

Where and when the human story began, how our ancestors changed over millions of years, what they discovered in the Stone Age, and how hunter-gatherers lived.

3

Egyptian Civilization

What makes a civilisation, how the Nile made ancient Egypt possible, how its history is divided, how the Egyptians built, wrote and worshipped, and what they left to the modern world.

4

Origin and Expansion of Rwanda Kingdom

How the Rwanda Kingdom began, which parts of its story rest on oral tradition, why and how it grew into one of the strongest states of the Great Lakes region, its most important kings, and why the monarchy declined and ended.

5

Organisation of Pre-colonial Rwanda

How pre-colonial Rwandan society was organised: family, lineage and clan; the king, chiefs and armies; itorero; farming, herding, crafts and trade; beliefs and culture; and the ties of ubuhake, ubukonde and uburetwa.

6

Trans-Saharan Trade

How the camel caravans that crossed the Sahara began and grew, what they carried, how gold and salt built the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai and made Timbuktu a city of books, and why the trade declined after 1591.

7

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (Triangular Trade)

How the triangular trade across the Atlantic worked, why it grew for nearly four centuries, what it did to Africa, Europe and the Americas, and how enslaved Africans, African rulers and campaigners resisted it until it was abolished.

8

Forms and Principles of Democracy

What democracy means and how to recognise it, the principles that make it work, its direct, representative and constitutional forms from ancient Athens to today, and how citizens take part in Rwanda through elections, citizens' assemblies, umudugudu meetings and Imihigo.

9

State and Forms of Government

What a state is and how it differs from a government, the types of state and the main forms of government, the organs of the state and what they do, and how Rwanda is governed from the national level down to the umudugudu.

10

Conflict and Violence

The forms, levels, causes and consequences of conflict and violence, how conflicts can be transformed through dialogue, mediation and reconciliation, the mechanisms Rwanda uses to build peace, and how to handle conflict and bullying at school.

11

Genocide and Its Features

What genocide means in law and where the word came from, its features and stages, how it differs from other mass crimes, and three cases studied with respect for victims and survivors: the Herero and Nama genocide, the Holocaust, and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. It ends with remembrance and what young people can do so that it never happens again.

12

Dignity and Self-reliance in Rwandan Society

What dignity (agaciro) and self-reliance (kwigira) mean for people and for the nation, the home-grown solutions Rwanda has adopted to achieve them, a case study of Girinka and Umuganda in numbers, and what these ideas mean for Rwandan society and for you.

Units