Clemantine Wamariya Biography

Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when genocide tore apart her home country of Rwanda.

She and her sister Claire were separated from their family, and in 2000, after six years in refugee camps, were brought to the United States by the International Organization for Migration. Miraculously, the following year, after 7 years of separation, Clemantine and Claire learned that their parents and younger siblings were alive in Rwanda. The family was reunited on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2006.

Clemantine’s experience as a Rwandan Genocide survivor and a former refugee has emboldened her to fight injustice and to champion the cause of underprivileged and disadvantaged people. She has been a featured panelist and speaker for many organizations, universities and conferences, including Chicago Ideas Week, Edison Talks, Tufts University, TedxYale and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Human Rights Law Conference.

In 2011 President Barack Obama appointed Clemantine to serve on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the youngest person ever appointed and the first from Africa.

With no formal education before age 13, Clemantine received her BA in Comparative Literature from Yale University in 2014.

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