Yesterday we visited the rYico project office in Brighton, UK. We met Vivenie Mugunga Co-Founder of the project and her son Akim. The aim of the meeting was really to get to grips with what our roles would be at the project in Kigali, Rwanda organise dates and to gain further information about our trip out there.
The move of buildings for the centre is not as imminent as originally thought due to government bureaucracy, however after chatting to Viv, we found there is still plenty to do out there. We talked at length about our own skills and unpicked how we could match our own fields to the needs of the centre. The centre does so many amazing things - providing a home for many displaced children, training them in life skills, enabling schooling and reintegration advice for children who can be returned to their communities.
As the centre move is not happening for a while, Toby will be involved in working with the young people to design and redecorate existing rooms, building shelves and generally making the rooms more appealing.
Since the original website was lost, it has been difficult for Viv to find the time to add to the new webpage. We will both be contributing to this by taking photo's of staff, acitvities and trying to tell the story of some of the children there. This year is the 10 year anniversary of the organisation. We are hoping to help to compile a book to show how far it has come in this time.
Through our discussion, we realised that in two weeks, we weren't going to have the time to plan and deliver educational training. However, on this our first trip we are hoping to get to know the centre, staff and children and over time be able to continue our support and next time become more involved with the training side of the project.
It was amazing to talk to Viv - herself a survivor of the Rwandan genocide ...a sobering reminder of the terrible bloodshed Rwanda has seen in the not so distant past. In contrast Viv's enthuisiasm and positivity left us inspired and even more excited about going out to Rwanda in order to help this very grassroots, community led organisation that really does make a difference to the children and people that need it most.
After seeing Viv we went to vist our good friend Dave who in 2005 donated a sizeable sum of money to the project which enabled Viv and her colleagues to really get the project off the ground. He is seen as their founding member as without this they were struggling to raise enough money. It was great to catch up with him and we were treated to a fantastic veggie curry ...thanks Dave ! We look forward to keeping in touch with Dave as our plans progress.
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