Care for Children (Rwanda)

For the third time, and third year in a row,I went to visit the children in the Care for Children (Rwanda) program and their families.  The program was set up 3 years ago between African Evangelical Enterprise Rwanda and Jubilee Cares Ministries of Hong Kong.  

For approximately 300-400 USD a year, one can sponsor a child to stay in school.  The money pays for school supplies, meals at school, medical insurance, and small scale income generation (such as buying a pair of goats, chicken, …).  

I try to visit the children whenever I am in Rwanda and can find a bit of time.  They are in a district roughly 4 hours south west of the capital Kigali.  Hence each visit takes one full day.  This year I have two of my colleagues with me, because we are also investigating the possibility of other projects in the area.  

In the past two years, I would visit around 4 of the children at their homes.  This year AEE brought around 15 kids and their parents to a school.  We are able to listen to testimonies from some of the children as well as their parents.  The kids even challenged us to a game of volleyball.  

They have such touching stories it is difficult not to be moved.  On the one hand, it hurts to hear their struggles. On the other hand, we are encouraged by the progress they are making.  A girl, C, that my family sponsor, lives with her mother, in a rented room.    They were so poor that they didn’t have their own clothes (they had to borrow from others). They were given a cow by the government but the cow died after giving birth to a calf, which was subsequently stolen.  They persevere and from the income generated  from other sources (including a pair of goats and some chicken) they are able to buy some land.  They are now doing much better and C is going to school regularly.  T

There was another girl, K, that my family also sponsor.  She is one of 6 children.  They  have no beds, but sleep on a matt on a floor of dirt (I have seen it last year).  K could get barely one meal each day.  She could afford only one note book for all the subjects that she studied.  That made it very hard for her to study.  Now they have a mattress to sleep on.  She has a notebook for each of her subjects.  She is eating better and in better health.  She is now top of her class.  How can one not be moved to want to help? 

Two years ago, we visited a father and son.  They lived in a dilapidated house which seemed on the verge of falling down any minute.  The boy showed us the tattered clothes that he wore because the sponsorship gave him new uniforms for school.  Before that, he found it difficult to go to school because he did not have proper uniform, was often hungry, and bullied for being poor and poorly dressed.  This is a common theme that he hear again and again.  Basic education is free in Rwanda.  But there are other factors that cause children to drop out of school: lack of uniform and school supplies, money for lunch and medical insurance, poor health due to lack of food and nutrition, bullying by other students, …  The sponsorship goes a long way to alleviate these challenges.  The father said he knew time was tight and many parents wanted to speak.  But he wanted to thank the boys sponsor.  They have since fixed the house, and the boy is now attending school regularly.  

The mother of another girl runs a small business.  Sh buys unripe fruits, and sells the fruit for a profit when they ripen.  She gave us each a ripe, sweet banana as a treat.  In Rwanda, most bananas are green and not sweet.  They are relatively inexpensive, usually cooked and eaten as a starchy staple food.  The yellow, sweet bananas, eaten as a fruit, is much more expensive and relatively uncommon.  The fruits, hence, are their livelihood, which enable her daughter to stay in school.   We, of course, pay her for the bananas.  We actually bought up all here unripe avocados to bring back to Hong Kong.  At about one-tenth the price we pay in Hong Kong for avocados.  

The mother of yet another girl, A, is a self taught village tailor.  Her husband passed away and left her with 4 young children.  She used to borrow other people’s sewing machine to make a living.  With the sponsorship, she bought a big, whose manure generated some income.  One thing led to another, and she has now bought tow sewing machines.  Having taught herself to sew by watching other people, she is now hiring and training other people to sew.  She is using her living room as a show room for her small sewing business.  She is now going to church regularly and feels comforted.  A couldn’t take notes earlier, because of the lack of a notebook.  Now she can, and is doing better in school. 

There is much in common among their stories.  But there is also a great variety of self initiative, individuality, resourcefulness, persistence, gratefulness, and joy.  

Along the way, we got to meet some of the Child Ambassadors.  They are volunteers in the community who visit the children regularly, and help to put them on the right track.  They are the unsung heroes who are seldom heard from, who make the program function.  

AEE also took us to visit a Savings Group, a kind of self-help group.  Where a group of ~20 families, usually more women than men, who group together to collectively save some money, take out small loans to start a small business, send a child to school, etc.  Here we see the spirit of the community, people helping each other.  They don’t have much.  But they have each other. Which is more than can be said for many other people.  

400 US dollars per year is roughly 250 Hong Kong dollars per month.  That is less than many people spend on a good meal in a restaurant in Hong Kong, less than the cost of a buffet at a decent hotel (quite popular in Hong Kong - just see how many hotels offer it).  For such a modest amount, one can help a child stay in school in Rwanda, potentially transforming their lives, and that of their families.