STREET CHILDREN RESCUE
A
government report in 2001 claimed there were 7000
street children in Rwanda, most living in Kigali.
Children orphaned through the genocide have been joined
by an ever increasing stream of aids orphans. Those
children are vulnerable to poverty, hunger, violence
and prostitution. At present the government has been
rounding up those children and keeping them in
under-funded centres where there have been reports of
death through malnutrition and abuse by those in
authority. In turn, many of the children turn to crime,
theft and violence to scrape a living on the streets.
To make an
online donation to this project click here
(marking your donation for Street
Children).
Our partners in Rwanda, The Living Church, has
developed a project to tackle this problem by providing
70 street children with food, clothing, health,
education and Christian training. The project is wholly
funded by Comfort Rwanda and costs £17 per child per
month.
Some of the
street kids enjoying their new clothes and good
food.
Reports from the project
are encouraging. Some children who have families have
been reconciled and gone back to the family home and,
if the family has been too poor to provide for the
child, support from the project is given. 90% of the
children have started attending school and because of
the support of the dedicated project workers nearly all
of them are in the top quarter of their classes now.
One of them even has an ambition to be Rwanda’s
president! These street children have renamed
themselves “The Friends of Jesus” and
formed a choir and traditional dance group. “We
are no longer street children” they say
“but we have become friends of Jesus”.
The challenge now is to develop vocational training
facilities for the children who are ready to move on
and build their new life. Bakery equipment is being
bought and a metal-work workshop is planned. Larger
facilities are also needed to enable the church to take
on more of the street children, some of whom are
sleeping in holes in river banks.
Some more
photographs from the Street Kids
Project
