Award-Winning Author Jeanne Celestine Lakin to Speak at Eastern Nazarene College

QUINCY – Eastern Nazarene College welcomes Jeanne Celestine Lakin as the 2024 speaker for the Kauffman Initiative for the Renewal of Christian Witness. Lakin, an award-winning author and inspirational international speaker, will visit campus on Monday, Feb. 12 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Her speech will be available to stream online.

Lakin’s journey from a child survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi people in Rwanda to a celebrated human rights advocate has captivated and inspired thousands around the world and launched a successful career providing insight and guidance to those feeling lost in life. Her goal is to help individuals break through their darkness and find their true purpose.

Despite experiencing extreme brutality in her childhood, Lakin has used those traumatic experiences to shape a better future. She has been appointed Chairwoman for the ODIHR International Survivors of Trafficking Advisory Council (ISTAC), acting and aiding as a formidable force against global human trafficking, influencing high-level United Nations events, and furthering the cause of justice on an international stage. Lakin has also established the NGO One Million Orphans, which provides sustainable educational support to some of the most vulnerable children across the globe.

Lakin’s impressive story was recently featured in former President George W. Bush’s book, Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants, as well as her award-winning memoir, A Voice in the Darkness: Memoir of a Rwandan Genocide.

Join us in person on the College campus in Quincy, Massachusetts in the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene to hear more of Jeanne Celestine Lakin’s incredible story of resilience and survivorship. If you cannot attend in person, register here on Eventbrite to stream the event.

The Kauffman Initiative is an endeavor sponsored by Eastern Nazarene College, supported and funded by a generous gift from the Kauffman family. The goal of the Kauffman Initiative is to reinvigorate Christian witness in America. The vision is to allow ENC and the local community to hear and be impacted by stories and practical wisdom of being faithfully Christian inside and outside the workplace. The Kauffman Initiative for the Renewal of Christian Witness exists to inform and inspire our community – students, faculty, staff, local pastors and churches, and the broader Christian population – to embark on a lifetime of fruitful witness and enhance the impact of ENC’s mission, both on campus and by extension into the world through her alumni, for decades to come.