King’s House School, Cyato and Rwanda Aid
To visit the Rwanda Aid website go to http://www.rwanda-aid.org/
At King's House School, Richmond, we are proud of our links with a charity called Rwanda Aid and to a very special primary school in Rwanda that was built in 2007 and now flourishes under our name. Here's a little of the background to Rwanda Aid and King's House, Cyato, Rwanda.
Rwanda Aid started life three years as part of The Lawrence Barham Memorial Trust to channel the proceeds of The Telegraph Christmas Appeal to social projects in Rwanda. Last year it was decided to establish it as a separate Charitable Trust, leaving LBMT to continue its principal mission of supporting the evangelical work of the Anglican Church in East Africa.
It is working in the remote and neglected South West region of Rwanda. The charity has two main aims: to relieve suffering where it is at its most acute and to help the country to build a more peaceful and prosperous future. Grand aims for a small outfit !
They have six main areas of operation, and then one exciting, but ambitious project which might successfully pull all those threads together.
Villages for children
Inspired by this brave girl, Rwanda Aid are building a village for children with physical and mental disabilities. The village has been designed by a team of UK architects and will accommodate 50 children in eight purpose built houses. There will also be a schoolroom, workshops and kitchen garden so that they can offer training appropriate to the children's needs and abilities. The aim is to enable the children to be to some extent self-sufficient, whilst at the same time boosting their self esteem. It may become a model for further villages, including one for the street children of Kamembe.
Education
In August Rwanda Aid proudly opened King's House School at Cyato. It has been beautifully built and equipped, and the training provided by the team of teachers from King's House, Richmond in summer 2008, will do much to enhance the teaching there and in other primary schools in the region. Thanks to the generosity of the King's House,. Richmond community, the twinning of the schools has been extremely successful, and something which they would like to repeat with other school.
Former KHS Headmaster, Neville Chaplin, who now helps run Rwanda Aid with his brother David also a retired headmaster, finds a novel solution to the transport crisis whilst working all of summer 2008 in Rwanda!
Healthcare
Rwanda Aid are now running the Diocesan Dispensary, and their target is to provide good quality health care in Kamembe with training opportunities for nurses and counsellors. They also plan to develop a maternity unit to help to prevent the AIDs virus being passed from mother to child at birth. At the same time, the dispensary acts as a base for our AIDs outreach programme.
Emma Reed is a barrister working in London. She is one of the RA Trustees and she has visited Rwanda on two occasions. She is pictured here at one of the AIDs clinics in summer 08.
Vocational Training
Rwanda Aid took over the running of Murangi organic training farm at the beginning of August. In the future, the farm should be self-sufficient and provide a centre for the training of at last 70 students each year, and these students will be committed to passing on their skills within their village associations. In an area where so many depend on subsistence farming, this training should make a big difference.
Welfare
Rwanda Aid will continue to support the Diocesan welfare programme, and they are eagerly waiting to start the second cycle of help to the thirteen parishes.
Youth
Taking advantage of the fact that the Rwandan manager, Prince, has trained in micro-finance, they are planning a pilot scheme in Kamembe.
And finally...
They have one final, ambitious idea which might bring together the strands of their work which have been outlined above. It is stressed that this is very much at an exploratory and provisional stage, and would only be considered for 2010, and only then if they are able to attract the necessary funding.
The Government is very keen for help in developing a holistic approach to tackling the problems facing the poor, supporting its 2020 vision. The suggestion is that Rwanda Aid might best be able to do this by supporting the creation of a model Mdugudu, or "village community". More news as this exciting project develops.
If you would like to receive Rwanda Aid monthly newsletters personally, please send your email address to dcpeasmarsh@hotmail.com with a note requesting the letters.
If you would like your child (up to 13 years old) to receive a regular children's Rwanda Aid newsletter, please send either your own or your child's email address to dcpeasmarsh@hotmail.com stating that you would like the children's newsletter.
Information Files:
Thank you from Mrs Piper
File Date: 11/06/10 | Filesize: 12 Kb | 56K Download: 3 Secs
Newsletter May 2010
File Date: 11/06/10 | Filesize: 3,655 Kb | 56K Download: 892 Secs
