If, when in Kigali, you want to stage or attend a play, a Jazz concert, a Film Festival, read the latest French Booker Prize, learn French or Kinyarwanda or watch the final match of the ACN on a giant screen, there is no better place than The Centre for Franco-Rwandan Cultural Exchanges (Centre d’Echanges Culturels Franco-Rwandais - CECFR).

It is - together with la Maison des Jeunes de Kimisagara (Kimisagara Youth Centre) in one of its suburbs -, practically the only cultural Centre in the Rwandan Capital. As a matter of fact, Kigali is an atypical city as it lacks the multiplex cinema centers, the numerous libraries and bookshops or the auditoriums that are found elsewhere in East and Southern Africa.

In that respect, the CECFR fills the void.

Conveniently located in the centre of downtown Kigali with easy parking facilities, it puts at the disposal of its visitors a large range of activities in the field of art and culture by hosting various events organized either internally or externally. It also offers a large space devoted to reading and the possibility to develop one’s linguistic skills.

It prides a 20 000 or so volume library that devotes a large place to Africa. Alongside its important documentation on the Black continent and more particularly on the recent Genocide in Rwanda, it has a large section devoted to African literature where students and adults alike can study in the quietness of the main reading room and where children can enjoy the comics of the specially designed Children’s library. In 2007, a media centre with Internet connections will allow students to carry out research in their field of study. Every month, local musicians – either Rwandans or from the rest of Africa (like Zao from the Congo in 2005 or Oliver Mutukudzi “Thuku” from Zimbabwe in 2006 to name but a few) produce themselves in the main auditorium that can accommodate 400 people. Traditional dancers and emergent new talents in contemporary dance get a chance to exhibit their creations to a large audience. And you can have a snack or enjoy a beer or a soda at the cafeteria while waiting for the event to get started. As far as cinema is concerned, an international Film Festival is organized every year, and a Russian film week and, at a later date, an Egyptian one attract large crowds of people eager to watch a good movie.s

Every two years, the CECFR participates in the FESPAD (Pan African Dance Festival) and offers its stage to troupes from all over Africa.

It would take too much room to just enumerate the various activities that the Centre organizes with the participation of its various partners.

Finally, a word has to be said about the “late” IGIKARI language Centre, well known throughout Rwanda. If the building that housed the linguistic activities .of the CECFR has ceased to exist, this does not mean that the language courses offered to adults and school children alike have stopped. To the contrary. While waiting for a new modern Language Centre to be erected on the premises of the CECFR (at the back of the auditorium), the evening classes have been temporarily delocalized at the Belgian School while the afternoon ones have been relocated in the CECFR itself.

There, you can not only learn French from a beginner’s level to an advanced one but - so that you don’t be tongue tied - you can try yourself at learning Kinyarwanda or Kisawahili, and thus promote regional languages and the mutual understanding and respect of each other.