Éloge Butera

Éloge currently serves as Director of the Dallaire Institute’s Africa Centre of Excellence on Children, Peace and Security, based in Rwanda. He leads a team that promotes child protection and works to end the recruitment and use of children as soldiers globally. A McGill Law graduate, Éloge has a distinguished career in human rights and public policy. Over the past decade, he has served as a leading advisor to some of Canada’s most distinguished parliamentarians including the Honourable Professor Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire (Rtd), former Senator and Commander of UN forces in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, as well as the Honourable Ralph Goodale, former Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

A survivor of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, Éloge tirelessly champions both the prevention of and accountability for mass atrocities and genocide around the world. He has spoken to dozens of audiences of all ages about his experience in Rwanda and the important role engaged citizens can play in preventing other genocides in our time. In 2013, Éloge was inducted as an Honorary Witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, established in 2008 to document the history and lasting impacts of the Canadian Indian residential school system on Indigenous students and their families and educating Canadians about the devastating legacy of this brutal assimilation policy. Along with Holocaust Survivor and fellow Honorary Witness Robbie Wiseman, he played the role of “survivor in solidarity” with residential school survivors and their descendants. He was proud to advance the Commission’s public-facing work and spearheaded a civil society effort to implement some of the Commission’s 94 calls to action.

When not in Rwanda, Éloge lives near a beautiful river just outside Ottawa, Canada with his loving, brilliant life partner and their two young, active children.