Child Sponsorship - group of 4

I visited 4 other children in the child sponsorship program, a collaboration between African Evangelical Enterprise Rwanda and Jubilee Cares of Hong Kong.  The children live in Bweya Cell in Ndora Sector, in Gisgara District.  Near Butare in the south of Rwanda.  

The girl CU lives with her mother.  I visited her in 2022.  She has since grown (she is taller than her mother now) but just as shy as before.  The sponsorship provides her with books and supplies, uniform, fees for lunch at school and medical insurance. It also provides her mother with the funds to start a small business buying and selling produce.  When I visit her this time, she has a small store in the entrance of their rented house, selling cabbage.  She also buys and sells at the market when it opens.  In addition, the sponsorship also provides her with a couple of goats which produce a supplemental income when they reproduce.  

A separate governmental program provided her family with a cow, which smiled at us and licked my hands when I visited them in 2022.  The cow was to produce milk to provide better nutrition.  And offspring belongs to the government, which would give the offspring to other poor families.  Unfortunately, the smiling cow died while giving birth to a male.  Now they have to wait for the male to grow big enough, sell the male to get the money to buy another cow, and start all over again.  In any case, Clementine and her mother seem happy and very grateful. Her mother in particular.   

The lady in green, on the left, is Franzine.  She is a volunteer from the village.  She plays the role of the children ambassador in the program, as the frontline person in close contact with the child and her family.  

The girl SA lives with her mother and 3 other siblings.  She sleeps together with one of sisters on a mat on the earthen floor in her room which is not much bigger than her mat.  All their clothes hang on a string stretched about their mat.   Their 2 youngest siblings sleep with their mother in another room.   The father had left the family 7 years ago.  Out of the 5 children/families that I visited this time, only one seems to have a father around.  Scovia is 15 years old and is in secondary 5.  Since the sponsorship started, her academic ranking in her class has improved from 10th to 5th.  She seem very cheerful and was smiling throughout our encounter.  

The girl KU is 15 years old and is in primary 5.  She is the oldest of 6 children.  Previously her mother does farm work for others to make a living.  They have often struggle to put food on the table.  With the sponsorship, her mother has discovered a talent for running a small business, buying produce to sell.  It has produce a huge transformation in their lives.  How Kevinie ranks in the top 2 or 3 of her class.  

The boy EN is in secondary 1.  As a growing boy, he was often hungry prior to having the sponsorship.  He would feel unworthy and hide himself.  Now he no longer feels marginalised and is comfortable meeting people.  He loves physical education and football.  He has to collect grass to feed his goat. He also looks forward to fattening his pig, which should fetch good money.  His dream is to become a mechanical engineer and own his own home.   

When I was about to leave, he surprised me by taking me inside a room to see a litter of cute little rabbits with their mother.  Rabbits are consider good meat here, and they reproduce quickly.