Programmes for Children and Orphans
Survivors Fund is dedicated to the protection and promotion of survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Of those victims, perhaps the most needy are the children. Many of them are orphaned, left without the guidance and support of a loving parent to raise and care for them.
These children and orphans are often left to fend for themselves. They are forced to quit school, join the workforce and care for younger siblings. Often they are the care-givers to more than 10 younger brothers and sisters and adopted brothers and sisters. They are disadvantaged in every sense of the word.
SURF works to support the children in a host of ways. Please read below to see how we address the multiplicity of their needs:
Home Based Care
260,000 children have been orphaned in Rwanda through HIV/AIDS and related illnesses. Many Child-Headed Households (CHH), having watched parents die from HIV/AIDS, now have to face the possibility that they themselves or their siblings could be infected. This raises issues of care, medical costs, ability to earn a living wage and the insecurity of the future.
Through the widespread rape during genocide and the increased numbers of people with HIV, many orphans are beginning to fall ill. The true impact of this horrific situation is only just coming to light. Many CHH are too scared to get tested, don't understand why they are ill or are unaware that they have been at risk.
There is still widespread stigmatization and fear regarding HIV/AIDS. There is still a lack of knowledge about the disease and available medical remedies after a positive diagnosis.
SURF has set up a Home Based Care project which reaches out to children living alone. Counsellors and carers together provide a "family" set up for children experiencing isolation and loneliness, living on their own and with nowhere to turn for medical support, hospital costs, information, advice or counseling and protection.
Livelihood Sustainability
SURF is helping those children who dropped out school to look after siblings to acquire vocational skills which increase job opportunities. Vocational courses enable young adults to set up businesses or procure jobs which pay a living wage. A few such projects include: a restaurant, an internet café, a chicken farm and a piggery farming project.
Since 1997, over 2000 widow and orphan headed households have received grants from SURF for income generating activities such as farming and animal husbandry.
Hopes for Homes
Many children have no inheritance from parents – neither money nor land; they have had to fend for their basic needs including providing shelter for their siblings.
To combat this situation, SURF has been working with local communities to acquire land rights and allocation for children. As many as 200 children were recently housed in Gitarama (a region of Rwanda) in 40 houses built through efforts coordinated by Survivors Fund. SURF continues to devote a large portion of its energies towards building homes for those children in the greatest need.
Testimony and Memory books
For child survivors, there is a particular need to document their life histories. Pre-genocide children lived in protected families and had no understanding of the hatred and mistrust that existed in communities. Orphans of genocide were too young to understand why genocide occurred and still do not know the facts. With no questions asked because no one is there to listen, these children will grow up to be angry and resentful adults. Sometimes when young children have tried to discuss their experiences the older ones have found it so painful to deal with they have discouraged any talking. These children have had no psychosocial support.
Yet these children witnessed the most horrific events. They need to understand the causes and to be reassured that this was not their fault and that it will not happen to them again. They need to be listened to; to be encouraged to speak; to be allowed to ask questions; and to be told the truth abot what really happened. They need to understand policies that will address issues of conflict, justice and reconstruction.
Each child will be helped to piece together family histories to enable these children to determine their roots.
To get involved with any of these projects, please contact our Director, Mary Kayitesi Blewitt at 020 7610 2589 or at mblewitt@survivors-fund.org.uk.