Felicite Rwemarika

This article has multiple issues. Please help or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article may lack focus or may be about more than one topic. Please help improve this article, possibly by splitting the article and/or by introducing a disambiguation page, or discuss this issue on the talk page. (February 2021) This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. Please remove or replace such wording and instead of making proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance. (February 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Felicite Rwemarika

Felicite Rwemarika was born on 9 March 1958, in Rwanda, and she has been an IOC member since 2018. Throughout her life she has actively been organizing international conferences on gender equality through sport for social change. She is the main speaker at the American University of Nigeria on unity and reconciliation through sport. On a district level she is the Chair of the Women's Council, and on a national level, she organizes workshops and seminars in order to raise awareness and promote sport as a powerful tool for peace-building, conflict resolution, gender equality, and economic empowerment which starts in schools and other communities.^[1] Rwemarika has dedicated herself to heal women who were victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda through activities which are held by the Association of Kigali Women in Sports (AKWOS). She is a strong believer and encourages the wider participation of both women and men in the conversations about gender based violence, women empowerment, HIV/AIDS reconciliation and entrepreneurship.^[2] She is also the organizer of financial literacy trainings and bespoke competitions for the AKWOS members.^[3]

Education[]

From 1985 until 1995, Rwemarika studied at the Mulago Hospital in Uganda and received her Diploma in Nursing. In 2007 she received her Diploma in Business Administration from Cambridge College Online. Rwemarika also has a Diploma in FIFA leadership development program.^[1][4]

Career[]

From 1985 to 1995, Rwemarika was a medical nurse at the Mulago Hospital in Uganda, in 1997 to 2004 she was the founder of two businesses, a beauty salon and a restaurant. From 2004 to 2008, she was Country coordinator of We Act for Hope NGO, where in 2009 she became chair. She was also Chair of the Rwanda NGO forum on HIV & AIDS and health promotion in 2015.^[1]

Sports career[]

In 2003, she was founder, chair and legal representative of AKWOS. In 2007 until 2001, Rwemarika was a board member of the international women's organization Women Win. She was member of the CECAFA Women Commission in 2011. From 2013 to 2017, she was executive and advisor of the RNOSC (Rwanda National Olympic and Sports Committee). 2017 to 2018, she was president of the Women's Football Commission in the Rwandan Football Federation (FERWAFA). Also in 2013, she was president of the Rwanda Women and Sports Commission. 2017, she was a member of the Sport and Active Society Commission and in 2018, IOC Member. From 2007 until present, she is a member of the FERWAFA Executive board, 1st vice president of the Rwanda Olympic and Other Games, and initiator of Women Football in Rwanda.^[4]

Honors[]

Rwemarika was selected as and made an Ashoka Fellow in 2012. In 2015 she received an award from the Stars Foundation and from Girls Collective. In 2016, she received the IOC Award for Women and Sport on the African continent.^[1]

References[]