Village Rwanda UK

Village Rwanda UK support a community in a remote and rural part of Rwanda, working through local NGO Gihombo Forward (GiFo) to provide Early Years education, to develop basic community healthcare and to support villagers in developing business ideas to generate sustainable incomes and be self sufficient.

Village Rwanda UK will be holding an OPEN DAY on Saturday 6^th October 2018 where supporters, guests and anyone interested in their work will be welcome to attend.

The venue will probably be in Bollington. It will be entertaining, inspiring and there will be food and drink. One motivation for this event is to thank supporters for their continued and faithful support over the years, but mainly it is to demonstrate the impact contributions are having on the lives of people in rural Rwanda.

Members of the new GiFo board who all have families living in Gihombo and who all want to work hard for their own futures and those of their children.

Tricia Atherton writes:

Visits
So far this year there have been two visits by trustees- myself in January/ February and in May/June two other trustees, Margo and Chris who were accompanied by Janice and Jane. Please take a look at the website for more information www.villagerwandauk.com. Sadly, the planned visit of Jack and the students had to be cancelled for reasons beyond their control. The Co-op visit planned for October will also probably not go ahead, but there are other exciting opportunities to compensate for this.

In general, for me, the most encouraging thing is that the people of the village are beginning to take control more and to gain confidence in their own abilities.

• The Feeding and Teaching programmes are continuing to be paid for by VRUK, but we have the target date of June 2021 and we hope that by then most of the funding for this will come from the parents themselves. We will assist them in this by providing support for Income Generation projects, however, it remains a big challenge. A new friend, Janice, was a member of the group who visited in May and assisted greatly with the Education aspect of the project. She gave great support and encouragement to the teachers.
• Sewing Project. Money has been put into this project, and spent on purchasing 8 treadle sewing machines and providing training for 16 participants from a professional tailor. The next stage for this project is for the newly qualified tailors to find customers and to begin their own small businesses. Another new friend, Jane, who visited Rwanda in May, is using her skills and insight to help the women and has introduced new ideas of working with another Women’s Group in Kigali. Another exciting initiative.
• The other two income generation projects, namely the stove making project and the Boat cooperative are breaking even.
• As I have mentioned in previous newsletters, one of the other ideas for Income generation is the development of tourism and I’m delighted to say that this initiative is gaining momentum. We are working in partnership with Azizi Life – check out their website on azizilife.com, scroll down their homepage to Azizi Life Experiences and you will get a flavour of what we are trying to do together. This aspect is our main emphasis for the forthcoming year. Who knows? Maybe by 2019/20 you will visit the village yourself!

With all these initiatives in mind I was very concerned as to how we were going to be able to make progress without one of us being in-country for a significant amount of time, and then… along came Rose!

Rose is a young professional woman who is able to take a secondment from her work with Jaguar Landrover and has offered to work for us in Rwanda for six months, alongside Azizi Life and GiFo. She will help write and implement business plans related to Tourism, building on the work begun by Jane and Janice.  She and I will go to Rwanda in January 2019, I will stay for my usual four weeks to ensure that Rose is settled in her accommodation and is comfortable with her support network.

It would be fantastic if you can come to our Open Day. If you are unable to make it but would like me or other trustees to come to you with our presentation please, please ASK US!!

Don’t forget to let us know if you are able to attend the Open Meeting in October.

Please take a look at the website for more information www.villagerwandauk.com.