PROJECT-SUPPORT RWANDA

Association Children Help Network, Baden, Switzerland

Country / Place

Rwanda, Kamonyi

Rwanda is a landlocked country in East Africa. It borders Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania. Because of its hilly landscape, Rwanda is also called the "land of a thousand hills". The main African watershed between the catchment areas of the Nile and the Congo runs through the national territory. Kigali, the capital and largest city of the State, is located in the centre of the country on the Kagera River.

Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. The majority of the population lives in rural areas, although urbanisation is increasing. The high population pressure is Rwanda's main structural problem, as the country has hardly any industry and does not have any significant resources.

The village of Kamonyi is located about 30 kilometres southwest of Kigali.

General

Children Help Network is a small Swiss organisation that has been supporting development and support projects to improve the lives of children and young people living in poverty and hardship since 2001. The association supports two projects in Rwanda: a street children's centre and a social house. The association acts concretely, selflessly and with united forces. It supports manageable projects and, together with its local project partners, campaigns against injustice and misery.  

Beneficiaries

Street children's centre
Six years before the Rwandan civil war in 1994, the Swiss Othmar Würth (Brothers of the Christian Schools, also known as the La Salle Brothers) founded the street children's centre "Centre Intiganda" in the southern town of Butare-Huye. The centre offers children safety, guidance, and support on their way to a dignified and self-determined life.

Social house
Two decades ago, the Swiss lay missionary Anne Marie Steiner built a house in Kamonyi to provide a home and minimal medical care for mentally ill people; mainly women with their children. People with mental or psychological illnesses have practically no chance in Rwandan society; their suffering is not understood, and their limitations are not accepted. The "Social House Kamonyi" helps directly at grassroots level and with the poorest.

Project-support

Project: Social House Kamonyi

The "Social House Kamonyi" is now run by Mrs Vénéranda Ufitwenaryo. She herself experienced mental illness and social discrimination as a late consequence of the 1994 genocide. Today she devotes herself entirely to caring for the mentally ill.  

Vénéranda accommodates around 15 mentally/psychologically ill people, mostly women, some with children. Some further orphans are also given shelter. She enables them to live together and in dignity. The children can attend school and are encouraged to learn.

She helps the social outcasts with food, clothing, school fees and medication. She receives medical advice from a psychiatric clinic in Kigali ("Caraes" clinic in Ndera - set up by the "Frères de la Charité" order after the civil war in 1994), whose specialists trust her. She also helps around 50 ill people in the village and the region who do not live in the social house.