By Gisele Umutoniwase | Executive Director
Dear friends and supporters of Paper Crown Rwanda,
Hello!
Earlier this year, we started a new initiative through our GlobalGiving project, empowering 5 young women to become community educators and catalysts for change. In this report, I am thrilled to share an inspiring success story of one of those women, made possible by your generous contributions.
Rahmat, a program participant since 2016, initially joined Paper Crown as a program participant like many other young people we serve. Following her training, she became a dedicated volunteer, supporting girls' activism clubs in the schools we partnered with. Inspired by PCR's founder, Katie, Rahmat started learning about feminism and gender transformative work. Her commitment as a volunteer led us to invest in her development as a community educator through our GlobalGiving project.
At the beginning of this year, Rahmat, along with four other young women, has undergone comprehensive capacity-building, not only in our gender transformative approach but also in project management.Only a few months later, Rahmat transitioned from volunteer to a full-time employee at Paper Crown, a milestone for this project.
Under Rahmat's dynamic leadership as project manager, we have now expanded our flagship program, My Voice My Power, to an additional district, “Bugesera '' in the eastern province of Rwanda and one of the districts with highest prevalence of Gender-Based Violence. This expansion enables us to impact 50 more young individuals, 50 parents and teachers, and countless community members. Rahmat also assumes the role of communications officer, enhancing our social media presence, highlighting our impact, and securing resources vital for our mission of reshaping harmful gender norms.
Rahmat's journey epitomizes the goals of our GlobalGiving project. Her story inspires us, and we aspire to create more opportunities for young women community educators to transition into fulfilling roles within our organization, contributing to Paper Crown's overarching mission.With your continued support, we believe we can make this goal a reality.
In Rahmat's own words, "Growing up in a world where girls face extra expectations just because we're girls affected me deeply. Being a single mom like me is particularly challenging - I dealt with a lot of discrimination and stigma. But you know what? Those struggles lit a fire in me. They turned my job into something personal, a real passion for fighting for women's rights. I got involved with different women empowerment groups, learned a lot, but it was at Paper Crown where I shifted from just learning to actually doing something about it."
As always, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering support.
Warm regards,
Gisèle Umutoniwase
Executive Director, Paper Crown Rwanda
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Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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