The Project

Rwanda experienced one of the worst human tragedies in 1994. On April 6, 1994, the president of Rwanda was assassinated when his airplane was shot down. This act ignited tensions between two rival ethnic groups. Between April 6th and mid-July of 1994, one of the groups sought to extinguish the other in an act of genocide. The world mostly stood by and watched, and in the span of 100 days there are estimates that 800,000 to over 1 million people were murdered. Additionally, 2 million people were displaced from their homes.

The effects of the genocide live on today, over fourteen years later. Prosecutions are on-going, the country is trying to recover in many ways: politically, socially, and economically. A major effect of the genocide is to the family structure: wives lost their husbands, husbands their wives, and children their parents. Children are forced to be providers for their family at the age when children should not have a care in the world, but to go to school, play, and enjoy being kids.

Rwanda has also been hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. As with the effects of the genocide, this tragedy destroys the conventional family structure and children are forced to grow up faster than they should. We are teaming up with Gisenyi Church of the Nazarene and the NDENGERA Foundation who is taking care of 624 orphans whose parents died of HIV/AIDS and 190 street children and genocide related orphans. Total, they are taking care of 814 orphans.

In order to take care of the orphans, Gisenyi Church needs some help. They have great programs in place to help feed the children, educate the children, teach them a trade, and to take care of their health needs. However, all the resources to do this work are not there. We have committed ten years in partnering with this ministry in helping them reach sustainable, long-term development. The projects include building a training school, a primary school, a nursery, sanitation facilities, a completed administrative office, a health clinic, a chapel, a kitchen, a restaurant, a conference center, and a guest house. These projects fulfill short-term needs that the ministry has, but they also work towards long-term goals. The hope of the ministry is that they can provide education, tools, and resources to the orphans so that they can not only survive, but can make a living for themselves and for their family. They seek to equip the children for sustainable, long-term development. they invest in the present to hopefully impact their future.