By Charles Hazabintwali | Executive Director
The seventh progressive report of rehabilitation of 100 former street children provides Les Enfants de Dieu with the opportunity to share with our donors and friends about our journey of the last three months. Your contribution has helped us to impact the lives of street children in Rwanda by recruiting them, accommodating them, occupying them with psycho-social support and basic needs while they are hosted in the center, and allocating them in schools while preparing their families to proceed with successful reintegration into their families and community.
Les Enfants de Dieu is pleased to give our thanks to GlobalGiving team with their trainings, guidance, and field visits for how Les Enfants de Dieu could be successful in our daily work life. Above all, we value this great initiative of helping thousands of organizations and millions of people who are in need around the world!
Les Enfants de Dieu is delighted to share the success of the center where within the last 3 months; we rescued 19 children from the street and rejoice in all of the care and love they are receiving during their home stay!
Education: As education is a pillar of any development you could desire in life, Les Enfants de Dieu takes this opportunity into account in changing the lives of street kids in Rwanda. In this period, we became able to continue paying all school needs for 221 children in total, divided into 132 students in primary school, 72students in high school, and 17 in vocational trainings. In general, they have succeeded with good reports in second term!
Health Care: All children in the program benefited from different health care services of fighting and reducing diseases. We were able to reduce Malaria and other serious diseases on a high level success rate at 60%, compared to last term. Les Enfants de Dieu Center helped newcomers to access the first pre-screening test on HIV/AIDS, and more treatments were preceded for infections such as skin diseases and worms where we reached up to 95% of all children rescued.
A story of boy called Emma: Emma joined the Les Enfants de Dieu in February 2017. He was drugs addicted to the level that he couldn’t sleep without taking the marijuana or breathing glue every day! Since we received him, he tried to escape the center at night and go out to find it for about a week. Later he was arrested by security people of the center and talked with the social workers the next morning. He explained what he did and started a working journey of being helped by the psychologist to stop taking drugs! He agreed to stop even if it was a hard decision for him. After 3 days, he felt dizzy, lost his appetite, was unhappy, and felt as if he was going to die. He was pushing his psychologist to give him a permission to go on street to take marijuana and glue and then come back immediately. The psychologist observed him and decided to give him a last chance in order to help in transition. Within three hours he came back with a big smile on his face because of being able to take the drugs again! He committed himself to sign a paper of not taking the drugs anymore in front of all his educators! A week later he again felt the same way. He approached his psychologist looking for permission to leave, but she denied permission and proposed Emma to ask the executive director for permission! Emma decided to keep silent for a day. The next day, he went to the executive director, crying to ask permission. According to the way he was feeling, the director finally decided to give him permission again! Emma ran quickly and was helped by other street kids to get it immediately and returned within two hours! He signed again a letter and decided again to stop it! Since then, he stopped taking drugs, but he continued having the problem of feeling inactive for some days because of lack of the drugs, but restraining himself to not ask permission again! With different sessions with the educators and psychologist, he reached to the end of using drugs! Now he is a good student who looks after himself and his brothers! He is ready to be reintegrated back into his family and contribute to his family growth and society. With his own words, he said that he felt different and become a new person. He is looking forward to help his younger sisters, brothers and his mother!
Home affairs: We received 19 children who were rescued from the street at the end of August and the beginning of October. All of them were helped and received the same facilities of the other children, such as providing shoes, clothes, personal hygiene and cleanliness to all children. The hygiene products are available for the refectory, dormitories, and refectory and classes draft or logic framework.
Reintegration: Our center helps children trace their families, where we conducted 46 visits and reconcile both sides before we proceed with final reintegration. In the last 3 months, children rejoined the community through that process and receive follow-up. We also continue sponsoring for their education where we managed to visit 15 children, which we consider a low number according to our wish, due to the budget constraint. The center will continue to host new children as we reintegrate some into the community, which is the reason why the needs will keep increasing.
So far we reached up to nearly 40% of the budget requested through GlobalGiving. Specifically on this project, we are reporting on how we are covering the needs of the children. We still aim at raising the rest of this budget, always relying on your huge heart and a helping hand.
Always remember that you are honored and respected for your support and making a thousand smiles for the kids who used to be the street kids and become children of God <<les Enfants de Dieu>> because of contributions! Thank you so much!
By Yvan Thierry NTAGANDA | administration officer
By Charles Hazabintwali | Project Manager
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