We are delighted to inform you that the building work on the Comfort Transformation Centre has finally begun! Despite many setbacks, this incredibly exciting project is now becoming a reality, with foundations being laid this week! We would like to take this opportunity to thank our amazing supporters for their continued support over many years, both prayerfully and financially, towards this project which will transform so many lives.
Comfort International has been working with local partners to usher an end to poverty and bring hope for a new future to people’s lives for nearly 25 years. Many of these are the lives of street children and vulnerable young mums. The Comfort Transformation Centre will allow these young people to grow and mature in a healthy, caring environment; receiving food, clothing, education, health care and a sense of family. The CTC will include:
- A purpose built centre to allow children and young mums to rebuild their lives for a better future.
- Accommodation for up to 80 ex-street children plus ‘house mamas’.
- A home for particularly vulnerable mums and their babies.
- Facilities for living, learning, meeting and play, including a library, computer room, meeting rooms, offices, cafeteria, green spaces and much more!
- Facilities to provide food for very poor non-residents.
This project has not been without its setbacks. A long slow process of gaining building permissions and warrants followed by years of Covid lockdowns, and then restrictions on access to the site because of road building, have frustrated the project for three and half years since the land was bought. Then, when the time finally came to build, heavy rains put off building work once again. It has been a long struggle but at last we are seeing real progress with the CTC. Finally, last week the building work started for real on the home for street children and what is to be the hub for many of the Comfort Rwanda operations.
Last week, foundations were dug, building regulations checks done and foundations approved, concrete poured and steel bars for support columns bought, lab tested and approved. The visiting group from Arbroath Academy were able to get in on the action during this historic moment for Comfort International, and we thank them for all of their efforts to help with the work.
Other visiting groups will also lend a hand, but of course the oversight and skilled labour will be done by the engineers and contractors. It is also wonderful to see some Street Kids Rescue/Friends of Jesus graduates who are now skilled workers involved. Nshimiye Jean Pierre (top left) is now working with heavy machinery and has been involved in earth moving and shaping, and Mupenzi Eguide and D’amour are employing their skills on perimeter gates. Once living on the streets, stealing food to survive, and caught up in gang culture; they are now joyfully offering their skills to help build this Centre of Transformation with the vision of helping other children achieve that future. How wonderful to see!
This last week the team in Rwanda have been visiting Street Kids Rescue sites and seen the challenges facing the children seeking to break free from the cycle of poverty, homelessness and substance abuse that plagues their lives and frustrates their hopes for a better future. There are over 5000 young people presently in one Rwandan institution for ‘delinquents’ alone and the need for a godly and loving centre to restore the lives of those precious children and vulnerable mothers and babies is beyond question. The CTC will be a place of refuge, freedom, support and care. To see the building start feels like the end of the beginning – ahead lies much work to bring the project to fulfilment, but we are trusting God for help to bring the vision to reality and provide the home those children need.
