The in Charge of Affairs of French Embassy in Rwanda, Jérémie Blin announced this week that the French Cultural Center will soon be constructed near Kigali Convention Center in October 2020.
Jérémie Blin announced this on the evening of February 13, 2020 while welcoming the new cultural advisor, Juliette Bigot.
Blin told Rwanda News Agency that he is happy to work on this project after six months arriving in Rwanda.
“This is a phase to start activities; we are in the process to hire an Engineer who will supervise the construction works. We are preparing the plot that will host the French Cultural Center in Kimihurura Sector, near Kigali Convention Centre, our goal is to inaugurate it in October 2020,” he said.
Blin said that they managed to find enough land to host two big buildings of the cultural center. One building will be dedicated to the in charge of languages, another for cultural exhibition, conference halls as well as media space.
The center will also host a big space for concerts and different entertainment activities. It is expected that the center will give enough platform for youth to learn French language and will benefit Rwandan artists in promoting their profession.
Blin said that the preliminary activities of construction of this center will include their participation in culture promotion activities where they will support the team of Senegal called ‘Daara J Family’ that will be held in Kigali Cultural Village on February 22, 2020.
“We will also support the film ‘Petit Pays’ that was made from Gaël Faye book, the film will be shown to the public for the first time on March 7, 2020. We are also going to prepare the concert of Ivan Buravan on March 20th. During this month, we have many activities we will do in partnership with Embassies that use French language,” he said.
The former French Cultural Center building had a name ‘Centre D’Echanges Culturels Franco-Rwandais’ was located near the big roundabout in Kigali city on the side road to Kiyovu. It was closed and destroyed in 2014 by Kigali City Officials, citing the reasons of substandard of the new City Master Plan.
The closing and destruction of this building involved mixed views and thoughts of people about the relationship between two countries which was in critical conditions by then after the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi; but Kigali City leadership said that the reason of that was not far from politics.
Before being destroyed, the former building had a big inside library and could do other activities including French language teaching; Culture-based trainings and concerts among others.
The Express News
