Rwanda Aid

Daily Telegraph Christmas Appeal 2005

Rwanda Aid was incredibly privileged to be selected for the Daily Telegraph Christmas Appeal which raised over £350,000 - and especially to have features editor, Alice Thomson, and an excellent photographer, Abbie Trayler-Smith, working on the stories. They spent several days in Cyangugu visiting isolated and impoverished communities to see the work of Rwanda Aid.

The remote and neglected village of Bweyeye is a three-hour, rough drive through the Nyungwe rain forest. It takes the people nine hours just to walk from the village to the tarmac road. Here, where no other NGOs have reached, people live precariously by subsistence farming.

Orphan families are numerous. One such family (pictured below) is headed by Violet (14), who looks after her younger brothers Habishuti (12) and Theogene (9). She doesn't go to school but works their tiny plot of land and digs for other people in order to get enough food for the family and enable the other two to receive an education. Violet has since received a goat and new clothes as a result of donations to the Daily Telegraph. This will enable her to improve the fertility of her land with the manure and gain an income from selling the offspring.

Innocent is dying, probably from AIDS. The local health centre cannot help him, as he can't afford any treatment - even painkillers. (see David Chaplin's news for an update on Innocent). Rwanda Aid has built a house for the orphan family led by Claude (12) who looks after Eric (10) and a sister called Ingabira (4). They have also been given a pig that will provide piglets to sell to help pay for food and school books.

Cyangugu Diocese, with Rwanda Aid, is helping in this area by building or repairing homes, helping with education costs, setting up a small business credit scheme and providing livestock for those living in desperate situations. The primary school has been repaired, equipped and extended. The local health centre could be supplied with equipment and medicines - the staff would greatly benefit from training at the Church health centre in the main town of the region. An emergency fund could be set up to provide assistance to those who cannot afford medical treatment.

Nkombo Island suffers from incredibly infertile and eroded soil. There are few farm animals on the island, so manure to improve the land is lacking, as is expertise on crop husbandry.

Farmer Emmanuel has just 1 ha. In 2005 he told the Daily Telegraph that this would be large enough to support his family of eight children if he could learn how to make it more productive. He is one of 10 farmers from the island who have since received training in organic, sustainable farming techniques, funded jointly by Rwanda Aid and Send a Cow. They learned how to make compost, rotate crops, grow nitrogen-fixing crops and look after livestock. When they have established a suitable cropping pattern, they will be given some livestock. They are now acting as demonstration farmers to others around them.

A number of articles were published in the Daily Telegraph and can be accessed via the links below.

Life in the village of Bweyeye. set out to convey the broad problems facing the people in this neglected region through a visit to the village of Bweyeye and illustrates the ways in which we are trying to help.

Jill Barham Secondary School in Kamembe. highlights the plight of genocide orphans at the Jill Barham Secondary School in Kamembe.

Sussex School supports Rwanda Aid. looks at the support given by a school in Sussex.

Terror of starvation grips the Garden of Eden investigates the agricultural challenges of the area, by visiting the island of Nkombo.

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