By Michael Brotchner | Executive Director
First and foremost, I want to extend our gratitude to each of you for your generous support of the deserving students in our scholarship program. I also want to let you know that in order to provide more frequent updates about the impact of your support, we have shifted the focus of our GlobalGiving project by reducing our scope to supporting two of our group houses. Both of these houses are in Kigali – one is for eight of our young women, and the other is for six of our young men. This change will help us realize our goal of raising $7,200 to support these talented young men and women. Thanks to your donation, we’re already about one-quarter of the way there!
From the field, we have lots to report about the students you are supporting. One of our volunteers who serves as an adviser to our students recently sent the following update about the impact of group housing on our students’ lives:
“My advisees who live in group houses have the opportunity to study together for their exams and this can really help, as they all have different skills and abilities. By living and studying together, the students bond and become very close, creating that brotherly and sisterly environment they thrive in, and which some have never had before in their lives. During trying times such as April, when genocide commemoration activities occur, housemates provide encouragement and support for each other.”
A scholarship from ORI is about much more than university tuition. It’s about empowering young people from the most vulnerable segment of Rwandan society to achieve their dreams. And they are well on their way -- on the ORI blog, I posted news about Jackson and Janvier, two of the young men who live in one of the group houses supported by this project. Jackson interns with Miracle Corners of Rwanda as a Program Development Consultant, and his housemate Janvier is one of our ambitious students at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).
Read the blog posts about Jackson and Janvier here:
http://orphansofrwanda.org/blog/?p=105 http://orphansofrwanda.org/blog/?p=49
Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing more information about the students supported by this project. Again, I thank each of you for your investment in the futures of our students. I also encourage you to read a cover story about ORI that recently appeared in Miller-McCune magazine, which is the first major piece ever written about our students (see attachment).
If you have any questions, please contact me at michael.brotchner@orphansofrwanda.org. And please spread the news about this project!
Best,
Michael
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