Training Skills for Widows and Orphans in Rwanda

Dear sir/ Madam,

Gratefully we thank you for your donation, because we were able to support our all beneficiaries that were mostly affected by poverty and malnutrition in their household. Today we can start enjoying the impact of our project.

Happily we inform you that during these last three months we have served 25 orphans and 25 widows. The service we gave them was to we gave them trainings about having a nutritious meal and starting an income generating activity. In addition to that we taught them how to grow mushrooms and learn a skill of making jewelries such as necklaces out of papers.

Joyce Uwamariya one of our widows said” God bless this project and whoever support it, because I could not imagine my life without it. My child was almost dying, and these people of God gave me mushrooms and now the child is healthy. In addition to that, they taught me how to grow them. I can sell some, and eat the rest. I am getting the beauty of life, because of what I learnt from here. Thank you Charlotte, your project helped me when I was about to give up to life.”

The following are the challenges that we have:

• We receive a lot of request from widows and orphans girls from our community who want and really need our service. We want to recruit other women, but financially we can’t now.
• Getting all training materials is still a challenge for our venture
• Paying regularly the trainer is also a big challenge to our venture’s progress

Although we encounter challenges, we still set goals, strive to achieve them, and have plans.

We plan to:

• Recruit another session of 25 widows and 25 orphans to benefit from our programs
• Conduct community sensitization about having a nutritious meal as it has become a big issue in our community
• Teaching people about women’s rights, and business skills on the public meeting or on (umuganda) community service days.
• Teaching our beneficiaries waving using Rwandan grasses that were used long ago in the past.

What do you think about our project? Can we give up on widow who are about to commit suicide, just because her children are dying of hunger in her eyes? Do we have to let young girls stop dreaming of a bright future, because they got undesired pregnancies and have no one else to care about them? Don’t you think teaching skills to the poor can lift her from her poverty?

Thank you again for your support to our program!