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I was radicalised by the Rwandan genocide in 1994, during which over 500,000 members of the country’s minority ethnic group were killed during a pogrom lasting a hundred days.

I thought it was dreadful that the world seemed to look on indifferently at those horrors. My response was to stick posters up around my college begging people to do something, as if a group of A-Level students from a northern English town could influence events 10,000 km away on another continent.

Naturally my peers considered me a complete weirdo, so far out of touch with reality that they thought I was best ignored. Still, I took my activism seriously, self-publishing a magazine devoted to human rights, development and the pursuit of peace.

Ultimately, when I finally got around to applying for university a year after college, that activism informed my choice of degree. With graphic design discounted, I oscillated between Peace Studies at Bradford or Development Studies at either UEA or SOAS.

In the summer of 1996, I then travelled to Tanzania to stay with missionary relatives for forty days. While there, I met a pair of Rwandan sisters — orphans of the genocide — who devoted themselves to trying to teach me Swahili. Their strength in the face of such horrors taught me a lot.

The following autumn, I embarked on my degree in Geography and Development Studies in London, thinking I was destined to spend my life working in that field. Indeed, right up until my finals, I had my heart set on working for an international aid agency overseas with the intention of improving the lives of the world’s most deprived communities.

I aborted those plans on two counts. First, a visiting speaker for the aid sector advised us that organisations actually seek doctors, teachers and engineers, not people with degrees in development. Second, having imbibed so many post-colonial critiques of aid, I concluded that the sector didn’t need yet another white middle-class male traipsing around as an expert.

I suppose that’s how I ended up working in web development, an entirely different field bearing no relation to my prior studies whatsoever. Amusingly, in the project management methodology common to this industry, they speak of sustainable development — terminology erroneously shoehorned into software development from the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

As can be seen, those interests never really left me. Despite not pursuing the field professionally, I have always retained a passion for human rights, development and the pursuit of peace. I hope that those radicalised by the events of the day will likewise feel moved to change the world for the better.

Perhaps their radicalisation will lead them to studying medicine, nursing, education or engineering with a view to improving lives at home and abroad. Let something good come of these horrors. May their radicalisation be a positive force for good.