We are undergraduate and graduate engineering students at the University of Colorado at Boulder working to change the lives of Rwandan street children in Kigali, Rwanda! Currently, through Engineers Without Borders, we are working with the Rwandan Orphans Project to design and construct a catch-up school for the program's children. We have the vision, and these orphans have the desire to learn, but we need your help to complete this project!
Rwanda struggles to provide for a astounding number of orphans as a result of the genocide and AIDS epidemic. The Rwandan Orphans Project (ROP) began as a local NGO in Kigali, taking in boys off the city streets to provide them with a safe and nurturing home as well as counselling resources. As the operation quickly grew to serve approximately 100 street boys, the ROP purchased a new plot of land in the community. (See our newsletter on this page for details!)
This catch-up school will serve to meet the needs of the children in the orphanage and the surrounding community who have not had access to consistent education. Working together, our team hopes to facilitate the construction of a school that will benefit the Kigali community and serve as a model of sustainable community development.
The goal of the ROP is to act both as an orphanage as well as a community center where community members have access to educational, vocational, and income generating opportunities. The school facilities will serve as classrooms at for adults in the community, fostering the importance of education in all ages. This catch-up school will add to Rwanda's goal of instilling an education system that will assist the younger generations to rebuild Rwanda.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
