Patrick Uwihoreye
Reaching Out to Rwanda

Working a highly demanding job — he’s an analyst for Citgroup’s investment banking division, based in New York City and traveling the world — hasn’t stopped Patrick Uwihoreye from giving back to his homeland.

Over a decade ago, the native of Rwanda walked over a mountain range to escape one of the 20th century’s most horrific ethnic bloodbaths. In recent months he worked closely with Samuel M. Hamill, Jr., who chairs the Board of Trustees of the College of the Atlantic (Patrick graduated from COA in 2006, after attending UWC of the Atlantic), to create a new, four-year full scholarship for a student from the Great Lakes region of Africa, which includes Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Kenya, along with Rwanda. (Please see “The Davis Example Inspires New Generosity” on page 69.)

“I’ve been friends with Mr. Hamill since my sophomore year,” Patrick said recently. “Our conversations followed up on the economic conditions and abilities of the region — and one morning when I was having coffee with him in Princeton, he mentioned that he was touched by Mr. Davis’s scholarship initiative. He wanted to take advantage of that framework to offer scholarships to the Great Lakes region of Africa.”

Asked to research the idea, Patrick called educators and others in the region, then developed a proposal. In a moving talk at COA last fall, he unveiled the new scholarship program to Mr. and Mrs. Davis, Program CEO Philip O. Geier, Mr. Hamill, and COA’s president, trustees, faculty, and students.

“I left Rwanda during genocide on foot — and now I will fly back with a scholarship opportunity for talented students,” he said.

Patrick hopes to make a larger difference, in time, for his homeland. He’s already working with some entrepreneurs in the region, helping to set up biodiesel refineries in Tanzania and Rwanda.

“My region needs me,” he said. “I’m fortunate to be in the position I’m in. If I don’t take full advantage of it, I’m not well representing the people I left back home, where we’re hungry to get any form of opportunity.”