Sylvestre Nsengimana didn’t set out to build an arts organisation. He set out to survive being young and full of things he didn’t yet have words for. “Ever since I was young, I always wanted to write books,” he said. “I wrote several texts when I was in primary and secondary school, short stories, poems, song verses, but I never knew what that meant.”
It wasn’t until he reached the University of Rwanda and met other artists that the practice had a name. In 2019, he came to a single realisation: the poems he had quietly written for years had already healed him. This moment inspired everything he created next—UMUT Arts Rwanda, U SPEAK LIVE, the Rwanda Theatre Festival, and a growing catalogue of poetry, music, and film.
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“The Journey” Was the Only Possible Title
That realisation became his debut poetry collection, fittingly titled The Journey. “The idea was simply to share the experience of my journey,” he explained in an interview with Rwandan writer Lise Nova Berwadushime, “so I chose a summary title.
It represents my journey to healing, or my journey in this life.” He didn’t find it easy to put those poems into the world. “Of course I was afraid to share some of my poems,” he admitted. “I was nervous about revealing my personal stories.”
He performed anyway, and the act of exposing that vulnerability on stage is what turned him from someone who wrote privately into a professional performer. “Sometimes we learn and grow when we expose our vulnerability.”
Building the Stage He Wished Existed
That same instinct, that art could do the work therapy or policy alone couldn’t, became the founding logic of UMUT Arts Rwanda, which Nsengimana launched in January 2018. The name is deliberately layered: “UMUT” is Turkish for hope, chosen for its closeness to the Rwandan word “umuti,” meaning medicine.
The organisation’s mission is direct, to educate, entertain, and empower Rwandan youth to believe in their own capabilities through performing arts, while using that same platform for mental health awareness.
Alongside it, he founded U SPEAK LIVE, described as Rwanda’s first dedicated spoken-word poetry platform, and in 2018 launched what’s now the annual Rwanda Theatre Festival, combining workshops, live performance, and panel discussions to give young performers a professional pathway that didn’t exist before him.
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A Practice That Keeps Widening
Nsengimana has trained deliberately alongside his own artistic output, studying playwriting for young audiences with Sweden’s Unga Klara, film production through UNESCO, cultural management through Belgium’s Africalia and the African Management Institute, and joining an ecological theatre project with France’s Théâtre de la Poudrerie.
Artlink Switzerland named him one of its 100 global artist change-makers. In 2026 alone he released a short film, Motard, and travelled to Paris to launch a new poetry album, while continuing to run festivals and workshops back home. He’s now working on a second book blending poetry and prose.
“It is not easy,” he admits about self-publishing his first book. “You spend more energy, time, and money, and stores do not easily welcome your products.” Even so, he recovered his financial costs. Readers also told him that his poetry helped them through difficult times in their lives. In the end, he says, “It’s a pleasure to realise your dream.”
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