You Alone May Live

Mary Kayitesi Blewitt is a remarkable woman hailed and widely acknowledged for her role in advocating and giving the survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide a voice through the charity she founded.

Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, is a British Citizen of Rwandan origin, founded Survivors Fund (SURF) at the behest of survivors after losing over 50 family members during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Immediately following the genocide, she volunteered for the Ministry of Rehabilitation in Rwanda, working for eight months helping to bury the dead and to support the survivors, many of whom had lost everything – family and friends, home and health.

This formative experience inspired Mary to set up Survivors Fund (SURF) on her return to the UK to ensure that survivors received aid, assistance and support, and that people around the world would hear their voices. The London and Kigali based charity now raises over £1 million a year to support projects for survivors in Rwanda across fields including education, healthcare, income generation and shelter.

Since retiring as director of SURF in 2009, after dedicating 15 years of her life to the cause of survivors, she began the next phase of her career, research into trauma to learn how best to enable survivors to manage the horrific memories of genocide, now and in the future.

The research was supported by New York University, where she was a Visiting Scholar at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. During her tenure she spoke at various academic institutions, meeting experts on trauma (psychiatrists; psychologists; psychosocial counselors) and worked with 9/11 survivors to understand what provisions were in place to support them.

Mary completed the writing of her memoirs, with a particular focus on the lessons of 15 years of work with survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Her book, You Alone May Live, was published in the UK by Dialogue (an imprint of Biteback Publishing) in April 2010 and was launched with interviews on the BBC and a panel event with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

As part of her research into sustainable intervention for trauma victims, Mary completed studies in Complementary Therapy in 2011. She is now a qualified practitioner of Aromatherapy and Oriental Medicine, Aromatic Acupressure and Meridian Massage; Spinal Reflexology and Foot / Hand Reflexology.

Her practice focuses on clients with mental health issues, stress, anxiety, worry and depression. Mary volunteers at MIND, a mental health charity. She is now working on utilising this new skill set to benefit Rwandan survivors, which continue to deal with the effects of the genocide, in particular PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) as well as the intergenerational inheritance of trauma now experienced by children born and raised by survivors.

Mary was included in the Swiss Government’s 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005 project and honoured with a UK Woman of the Year Award in 2006. In 2008, her work for survivors was recognized in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List, with an award of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).