Rwanda: Fight Against Poverty: World Vision Offers Hope and Comfort

from All Africa

The New Times (Kigali)

Florence Mutesi
Kigali

The deputy manager World Vision Rwanda, Simon Nyabwengi said World Vision is tackling the root causes of poverty and has established 14 Areas Development Programme that will be partnering with communities to address poverty in the next 12 to 15 years.

"$57m will be spent in 2007, 2008 and 2009 on orphans and vulnerable children's projects," says Nyabwengi.

He said World Vision Rwanda spent close to $10m in 2006 on orphans and vulnerable children programmes.

"The money ensured access to early child hood education through construction of educational facilities and provision of scholastic materials and uniforms for disadvantaged children, and vocational training skills for orphaned and vulnerable children," Nyabwengi adds.

The workshop aimed at integrating the issues of child labour into national strategies among others was recently held at Novotel-Umubano.

"The money improved child nutrition by ensuring that food was available at the household level. Farmers were assisted to increase productivity of their land through construction of terraces and use of improved seeds in addition to improved farming techniques," Nyabwengi said.

It also helped in mitigating the impact of HIV/Aids, by training infected parents on positive living, risk avoidance and providing households of persons already infected with HIV/Aids with supplementary food rations to alleviate the problem.

"It provided capital for starting of small business and for investments in farming for families in urban and rural areas. It facilitated communities to live peacefully, productively and harmoniously with one another through the promotion of healing, peace building and reconciliation activities."

"The enabling policy framework will shape and modify culture and behaviour that impacts negatively on children and will provide guidance on tackling the root consequences of child labour," he said.

Child labour is a very serious challenge for Rwanda. More than one in four children between the ages of 5 and 14 were working in 2000.

The Government of Rwanda has rightly emphasised the importance of education to the country's development and has singled out knowledge among Rwandans as the country's greatest resource.

Efforts of KURET in the fight against child labour

Nyabwengi enumerated the efforts of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia (KURET) partnership, saying 6067 children have been removed from child labour and enabled to attend school.

The regional programme which began in 2004 will continue through 2008, operating in 10 districts in Rwanda with an overall budget of $4 million.

The programme has provided funds for school fees and scholastic materials.

"Ten classrooms and 24 gender-segregated latrines have been constructed," Nyabwengi said.

Thirty five teachers were equipped with counselling skills; trauma counselling, to make life better and be able to deal with the special needs of children coming to classrooms from an exploitative work environment.

"The teachers will help provide training to other teachers," he noted.

It raised awareness on the negative effects of child labour and HIV/Aids and the improvement of education with teachers, parents and children in the 10 districts where the programme is working.

Community based monitoring infrastructure is responsible for monitoring the school attendance of children removed from the worst forms of child labour.

"104 committees are currently operational at school level," Nyabwengi disclosed. The National child labour policy development process is underway, being facilitated by KURET.

A plan for capacity building with the Ministry of Public Service and Labour (MIFOTRA) is to ensure sustainability and continuity of the efforts to remove children from the worst forms of child labour.

Thirty Rwanda government labour inspectors have been trained on child labour issues and are currently integrated into their action plans and district action plans.

However, concerted efforts are made to counter the root causes of child labour, citing poverty and HIV/Aids, as the key areas. In this regard, World Vision has integrated the KURET programme into its long-term development programmes that seek to address the root causes of poverty.

Story from former victim

In a video play, Olive Musengimana says she became an orphan when she was only 4 years of age. After the Genocide, she was taken up by her relatives. The relatives were not well off but they strived hard to accord her a fair well being.

When she reached school going age, Musengimana went to a nearby primary school. Her attendance was irregular as she had home chores to perform too.

After sometime, she could no longer continue with her studies due to the many hours spent on house work compared to school time.

Musengimana left her relatives at the age of 13 and went to Gitarama, in Southern Province to look for jobs. The job she got in a restaurant was not easy for her so she had to look for relatively simple work. She sought for work as a domestic worker and she became a baby sitter.

When she had about World Vision project that helps children who are engaged in labour, she went and asked for support.

It was from there that she was taken to a vocational school where she is soon graduating.

Nyabwengi said that peoples' childhoods differ in many ways and that it depends on where one grows up from.

"I believe we all remember the many hours of fun that we would have playing with our friends, which would be interrupted by sleep, class work and helping our parents in odd jobs around the home and in farms," he said.