Jeanne Celestine Lakin

In her speech on “Resilience and Perseverance,” Celestine Lakin highlights stories of fellow overcomers, draws parallels to her own story, and then relates that to the audience. Despite challenges that can seem daunting, she argues that the desire to overcome is a deep-seated natural human characteristic that we all have the capacity to embrace.

Celestine Lakin delivers a presentation on faith and forgiveness that has changed people’s perspective for the better. Celestine Lakin’s parents were killed for something as arbitrary as their ethnic classification. In her case she witnessed the murder of her father. Later, she was beaten, raped, and set to be sold into marriage. Her home was looted, burned, and her future destroyed. She had every reason to hate the perpetrators and even the ethnic group responsible for these crimes; yet she doesn’t.

Celestine Lakin highlights the freedom forgiveness offers. “It is a gift from God,” she says. “It is meant to free you, the oppressed, not the oppressor”. She made this realization through her Christian Faith, counseling sessions, and credits her relationship with God for exercising this freedom.

This presentation is perfect for churches, spiritual groups, and faith-based groups.

This speech is focused on propaganda and how it is used in society to assign labels to groups of people. Often, a general label obscures the truth and humanity of a person or group of people. Sometimes these labels can have negative connotations and cause the user to distance themselves from the labeled group. During the Rwandan genocide, labels were utilized to dehumanize the Tutsi Ethnic group.

In this presentation, Celestine Lakin explains how these labels came about. How we can spot them when they are turning harmful. And what we can do to create a more inclusive atmosphere in our communities, schools, and businesses.

In 100 days over one million people were massacred in the Rwandan Genocide, which was planned through the methodical dehumanization of the Tutsi ethnic group. The framework and management for the killing campaign was organized by an extreme branch of the Hutu government. Celestine Lakin was a young girl, but she remembers the first signs of the genocide: ethnic segregation in school, police abruptly stopping by her home, and ominous warnings and hateful glares from neighbors. When the killing started, she was home with her nine siblings. Her father scrambled to protect his children, but the force of ethnic hatred was too strong. Every single Tutsi was marked for death.

Celestine Lakin takes audiences through the dark 100 days of genocide and reveals exactly how she hid, what she heard, and the horrors she saw. While this presentation is heavy and at times very dark,  she reveals points of triumph and inspiration that are beyond words to describe.