THE 1st PROGRAM DAY: Muzima Sponsorship

The first children arrived with their caretaker who had to give up a day to work for this precious day: the first day her children were going to be enrolled in Umushinga as she called it (the Kinyarwanda word for program). The other children arrived one by one in the rain, the group from Rugendabari arriving last.

We began with a meeting with caretakers and we covered the following subjects.

1. Education, For the time being, the children’s education will be the primary target of the sponsorship, with some support in other ways available.
2. AHEC Charity, We briefly discussed the partnership between AHEC and ERM in running the program.
3. Quality education, The caregivers discussed their concern of the poor quality of pupil education in some classes where their children had previously attended school (the size of the classes of 80 pupils, children in the third grade who cannot even write their names .…). We promised to do our best to place students in the best schools we can afford with allocated means.
4. Holistic care, we explained that it’s in the core values of AHEC to provide families with funds to meet their basic needs and even more! The households who are assisted may get grants for medical care, schooling, and workforce training, resulting in long-term community responses.
5. Program days, We plan to have program days once a week or twice a month to teach Bible and other essential lessons in order to obtain holistic care. Furthermore, this will be finalized after the COVID-19 limits are lifted.

A shared meal with the students

Rice is the most popular meal among the program’s students. In normal circumstances, we would have cooked the food with the caretakers, but due to precautions to restrict the spread of COVID-19, we ordered a rice meal and shared it with the kids, which was more than satisfying.

The letters

And then we went to the letter writing and letter receiving session; the kids were thrilled to hear from their sponsors and eager to write to them as best as they could.

We made a closing prayer and headed back home before the curfew.

e could not have done all of the above without the prayers and assistance of everyone involved in this initiative, AHEC International deserves our heartfelt thanks for offering such a wonderful life-changing opportunity for the most disadvantaged members of our society.

“kuko Imana idakiranirwa ngo yibagirwe imirimo yanyu n’urukundo mwerekanye ko mukunze izina ryayo, kuko mwakoreraga abera na none mukaba mukibakorera.”

Hebrews 6:10 in Kinyarwanda

Sponsorship Team

ERM-RWANDA