Rwanda

Good News International (Kigali, Rwanda)

Introduction: Feeding program and scholarship for the children of Gahanga village was officially launched in February at Joy Center. The children who were selected to be in this program are the ones coming from the most vulnerable families in this village. 70 children were selected, 35 boys and 35 girls. Most of them were showing the sign of malnutrition. Most of them were brought by their mothers and others by their grandmother who lives with them. This program consists of giving them food once every week, and also helps them to continue their studies. Since this program was started, we have been giving food every Friday all day. Through the testimony we get from the children and their mothers every Friday before giving more food, the children enjoy the food very much. This report describes the effects of the financial contribution into this program.

Every Friday, Children get SOSOMA which is a very rich porridge; they also get small dried fishes, Oil, and the maize flour. This selection of foods was recommended by different health centers that have been caring for the children with malnutrition cases. All the 70 children get the equal quantity. They have said that the quantity given is enough for one week, because some time we give them when they are still having little food remaining.

Effects or Benefit of Financial contribution

When this program was started, there were children who were clearly presenting the sign of malnutrition. All of them boys and girls were like that. The parents of these children were not having any expectations of how that problem could be solved. Most of these children are the ones who were abandoned by their parents and they are now living with their grandmothers who are not able to work hard to get food for them. The money sent by GCF was used to purchase the healthy food for those children. The most important thing of this program is that all the children are now in good conditions. All the signs of malnutrition are disappearing gradually. This support also has brought back hope into these 70 families who were living in hopeless life because of not having food for children. The effects are also remarkable on the studies of the children. When we talked to the leader of the schools where these 70 children study, they said that they were surprise by the 100% attendance of these children after this program started. They said that the average daily attendance was below 60% before our program started. The parents said that every time when the children had no lunch, they would have to stay home and not go to school.

Since the program started, we have been able to visit 47 families. The children enjoy the food very much. So these families have benefited a lot from this program and we are hoping to see more great effects as the program is carried on.

The children are very happy and every time when they come to get food with their parents, they are very happy. Most of them still remember Rev Kim when he was visiting them within their families. The children mostly come to Joy center to play games with their colleague after school. The boys who are in this program are very excited and they are now playing football every day at Joy center

Pascaline first from left and Helena first from right, work together with the project manager, mostly in the home visit in order to make sure that the children get the food properly as planned. They have also helped to select the children because they live with the people and they now better the life situation of every family. 47 families were visited since we started and we are happy to see how the children are being given food as we planned

Conclusion: We are monitoring the changed that are happening to the children as time is going and until now many positive changes are remarkable. More than that, we have measured the body weights and heights of the children so that we will be able to determine precisely the changes. Our program is always happening every Friday from 8 Am to 12: 30 Pm. Our special thanks to Global Children Foundation for providing the funds which are being used to feed and educate the vulnerable children here in Rwanda. Words are not enough to tell you the changes that you are making here. Finally we thank the family of Rev. Kim and Dr. Mi Ja Kim. Your good works are known here in Gahanga village mostly by the children who you have been serving when you were here. They are always asking about your news and they are sending their greetings.