Comfort International is launching two very exciting new projects in Rwanda, in partnership with Good News International (GNI), long term friends and partners of the charity. GNI has been working for many years with survivor communities following the ’94 genocide against the Tutsi, building relationships with many vulnerable and broken people across Rwanda. It had come to their attention however, that there was a big gap in support for the young people of their nation. Many of their previous projects centre around supporting older survivors, and while GNI will continue to support these communities, they have proposed two new projects to work with young people and children in difficult situations in Rwanda. These projects are based in the Bisesero area of Rwanda. The first is aimed at providing meals to nursery age children most at risk of malnutrition. Another is providing school meals to children whose families cannot afford it and would otherwise go hungry (this project may also cover schools outwith the Bisesero area).
Nursery Nutrition Project
The first project is the nursery malnutrition project. This is a project providing meals for nursery-age children who are most at risk of malnutrition. This project is based in a specific area of Rwanda called Bisesero. Children in this area are affected by two main challenges. In the decades leading up to the genocide, Tutsi children were targeted for ridicule, bullied at school and excluded from secondary education. This meant many children were discouraged from school and ended up staying home to look after the cattle in this predominantly agricultural area, where most families are subsistence farmers. So this meant that many of these children were denied access to proper education. Many families are very poor and have little or no spare money to buy food. So there are often extreme food shortages between harvests. Many children in the area experience hunger and show signs of malnutrition. In July 2019 a nursery school was built using funds from a French donor and named after Birara, the leader of the resistance to the genocide in 1994.
A malnutrition programme was set up in the Birara nursery in 2020 and aims to tackle both issues – improving child nutrition and encouraging attendance at nursery. If children are more likely to attend nursery, they are more likely to attend and participate in school life in the future. Simply having the correct nutrition changes everything; their day-to-day, their learning and development, and their future opportunities.
There are about 70 children registered for the malnutrition project, all between 3 and 6 years of age. This project provides nutritious meals for these children who are most at risk of malnutrition, and we could see when we were there, that a large number of the children were showing visible signs of malnutrition, so this is a much-needed project.
School Feeding Programme
The second project is the School Feeding Programme. The Rwandan government is subsidising the cost of school meals for children in Rwanda but the schools require a contribution from the family of 2,000 rwandan francs (roughly equivalent to £2) per month per child for school meals. However, many families in the Bisesero area are so poor that they cannot afford this for some, or all of their children. This is a largely agricultural area and most of the families survive on subsistence farming. So meals consist of beans and rice and are made at home. Many of the children need to walk long distances to get to and from school, and walking home again in the middle of the day to get food is not an option. Therefore, if they can’t afford to pay for school meals, they often go the full day without eating. This obviously makes studying and learning so much harder. Some families are forced to choose one or two of their children to eat meals for a month while the others look on, hungry. This is not a choice any family should have to make. The project proposes to subsidise school meals for the poorest families in Bisesero and beyond, so only £2 a month can pay school meals for a whole month for a child who can’t afford it.
These are two very worthwhile projects, much needed and this is a wonderful solution for the situation these children are in. We would love to present these projects to people who are not currently supporting Comfort International in any other way, especially schools and businesses. We would encourage existing supporters that instead of transitioning their generous donations away from current, similarly worthy projects to these ones, if they could present these projects to their schools, their children’s schools, their businesses and those in their sphere who perhaps haven’t heard of the work of Comfort International or are not actively engaged in it.
You can download your virtual feeding projects pack by clicking the link above, and for a hard copy including leaflets and posters, or for more information, please email your request to [email protected]
To help with this, we have created a welcome pack for your school or business. It includes:
- A pre-made Powerpoint presentation with beautiful pictures and explanatory notes to provide all the information about the feeding projects
- Leaflets for people to take away with information about the feeding projects
- A welcome letter for those who get involved
- Beautiful posters to hang on the wall and remind everyone what they are accomplishing in the lives of young people in Rwanda