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Melanie Verwoerd
A few years ago I worked for Unicef, the children’s organisation of the UN. During the four years I was with them, I travelled all over the developing world and often saw things that were done to children that were too horrible to comprehend. Yet, when you work for an organisation like Unicef or have a job where you have to deal with the horrors that children have to endure, you have to train yourself to be empathetic, yet never to personalise. You can't do your job if you imagine your own children experiencing something similar. It destroys you emotionally, and if you are falling apart you can't serve these young people who don't have the luxury of tears in their battle for survival.
However, one day in Rwanda it all became too much. I had been there a few times, but on this specific visit I decided to visit the genocide museum in Kigali. I was familiar with the history of the 1994 genocide, but in the museum I was truly confronted with the horror and reality of it all.
