"When I visited that school, I felt like I was a normal child. I wasn't a street kid anymore." These are the words of Eric, a former street child who now attends Sonrise Boarding School in Rwanda. RDDC, in partnership with you, is helping street children have the chance to go to school and permanently leave their lives on the street.
There are no official statistics on the number of street children in Rwanda, but estimates run as high as several thousand. Children are forced onto the streets because of poverty, domestic abuse, or parental rejection. The child's mental state switches to one of survival where he thinks solely about finding food and a place to sleep. The ideas of education or self-betterment disappear. The children are illiterate, have no vocational skills, and suffer from a deep sense of worthlessness.
RDDC runs a three-tier program. First, children attend dance classes that foster the transformation of aggressive energy into a positive, aesthetic art form. Second, top dance students are invited to go to the RDDC IT Center that teaches a standardized curriculum of MS Programs, Email, and Google Search skills. Third, top students receive RDDC scholarships to attend boarding school, which is the ultimate solution to breaking the poverty cycle: shelter, nutrition, clothing and education.
This project solves the problem of re-integration. Street children need to reform their behavior and perceptions as well as receive hard skills and education to successfully become members of society rather than beggars on the street. The RDDC Program is a full solution to this problem and has a proven track record of success in Rwanda. Over time, this model can be adopted by other NGOs in more countries in order to tackle the issue of street children on a global scale.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
