Summer Dashe’s trip to Rwanda included a visit to the students’ classroom at the non-profit college they attend. (Summer Dashe/The Daily Campus)

While most students spend their winter break catching up on sleep, skiing and spending time with family and friends, SMU journalism major Summer Dashe decided to visit Rwanda alone.

While Dashe’s parents were supportive of the trip, other family members and friends questioned her choice.

“I appreciated the concern for my well-being, but this was not something I was getting talked out of nor something I didn’t take completely seriously,” Dashe said.

Dashe began her journey on Jan. 2. In Africa, Dashe did not go by “Summer,” but rather “Mzungu,” a nickname given to her on her first day. It essentially means, “white person.”

Her journey’s purpose was to film for a nonprofit organization.

The Akilah Institute for Women in Kigali is a nonprofit college that prepares women for careers in hospitality. Many of these students lost parents in the genocide that wiped out nearly one million people in 1994.

“As I watched them interact and learn from behind the lens of my camera, I was amazed at the attitude there,” Dashe said. “These girls are my age. They have suffered such loss and come from extreme poverty. Despite all the factors against them, they were the kindest women I had ever met. They took me in and became my friends.”

Dashe interviewed many girls who attended the college. Grace, a 23-year-old Akilah student, lives with her cousin in a small home nestled between many others on a hillside.

The community shared a small hole in the ground for a bathroom and running water is found at a faucet outside.

“This sweet girl I had only known for two weeks expressed qualities only the very best of friends share,” Dashe said. “I promised her I would be back some day.”

Dashe also met people with amazing miracle stories. Allen, a 21-year-old in her third year at Akilah, grew up with her aunt.

She spent her life believing that her mother was dead, but Allen wanted the truth.

She returned to Uganda to search for her mother. Using a local radio station she sent a message out asking if anyone knew her mother. The next day they were reunited.

Dashe spent the next two weeks getting to know the girls at the college and before she knew it, it was time to go home.

Dashe returned to Dallas with excitement and a new perspective on life.

“I had navigated a foreign country by myself and succeeded. I had met people who found happiness in so little. It was only two weeks. As cliché as it sounds those two weeks had changed my whole world.”

Original accounts provided by Summer Dashe.