Fighting Poverty through Education

Rwanda Partners is working to provide school facilities, books, uniforms, teachers, and other necessary components to Rwanda’s vulnerable street children – providing them with the life-saving gift of education.

Education is a lifeline for young Rwandans working to break the cycle of poverty – particularly for those children who are trying to make it on the streets. Unfortunately, education remains out of reach for the majority of Rwanda’s orphaned and vulnerable youth, many of whom lost their parents in the genocide or to disease or abandonment. Completing secondary school is transformational for these youth who, without an education, are at risk of choosing dangerous alternatives to support themselves.

To counter these challenges we are currently partnering with 2 local Catch-Up Schools that provide an education for street children.

Muhumurize Catch-Up School and
MEJECRES Catch-Up School

Muhumurize Catch-Up School (a name that means “Comfort Them”) is a school for street children run by Theoneste Biseruka. This school serves 251 street children in Kigali. MEJECRES (an acronym that means Hope for the Children) serves 411 street students in Kigali and is run by Alexis Ruhumuriza. These schools provide their students with the equivalent of a 6 year primary school education in only three years – thus “catching them up” to their peers who attend school. The children attending Muhumurize and MEJECRES are rescued from a life of hopelessness, and in most cases homelessness. While some of the students have a parent or caregiver alive, there was never any income to allow them to attend school so they have been forced to a life on the streets to fend for themselves. For those students who are without a parent or caregiver, many of them lost these adults to the genocide or to AIDS.