Shining Star of Perseverance - Assurant Employee Benefits
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Honorees |
2009 Shining Star of Perseverance
Gilbert Tuhabonye is a champion, a motivator, an inspiration. He first came to the United States from Africa in 1996, a few months before the Olympic Games in Atlanta, as one of the select members of the International Olympic Committee’s development training camp, a program for athletes from developing nations. His participation in this IOC program earned him the honor of carrying the Olympic torch as well as participation in the Opening Ceremonies in Atlanta.
Gilbert remained in the United States and in 1999 moved to Abilene, Texas, where he attended Abilene Christian University. During these years, Gilbert was honored in Washington by President Bill Clinton as the recipient of the Giants Steps Award on National Student Athlete Day, met life long idol, Muhammad Ali, received the Courageous Student-Athlete Award from the National Consortium, and became a national collegiate champion runner. He also overcame language and cultural challenges to receive a bachelor’s degree from Abilene Christian.
Despite his tremendous success in the United States, Gilbert’s path has not been an easy one. Born to a Tutsi tribe farming family in Burundi, a small mountainous country in east central Africa, just south of Rwanda, Gilbert grew up in the midst of the centuries-old war between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes. In October 1993, the Hutu classmates at his school, their parents, some teachers and other Hutu tribesmen forced over two hundred Tutsi teachers and children into a small building where they beat and burned them to death. After eight hours of being buried under the burning corpses of his beloved friends, and himself on fire and seriously injured, Gilbert jumped free of the burning building and ran into the night, surviving one of the most horrible massacres in the long Tutsi-Hutu war.
Gilbert now lives in Austin, Texas, where he is the award-winning coach of Gilbert’s Gazelles, a training group consisting of hundreds of dedicated runners of all skill levels. Gilbert has also created the Gazelle Foundation, with the mission of improving life for people in Burundi and offering educational assistance to children in Austin, Texas, where Gilbert, his wife Triphine and daughters Emma and Grace reside. His life story is captured in his book, This Voice in My Heart, a testament to the triumph of the human spirit as Gilbert emerges from the scars of his unimaginable ordeal to live a life of optimism, grace and victory.
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