Orphan & Vulnerable Children Micro-Enterprise/Scholarship Fund, Rwanda
Rwandan AIDS orphans stand inside their house. Photo: Chris Sattlberger/UNAIDS |
The Young Women's Christian Association of Rwanda (YWCA) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization, established in Rwanda in February 1995, following the genocide and in response to the rising concern for the many widows and children left in its wake. Its goal is to improve the conditions of life for women. Many of its members are widows. The mission of YWCA is to bring together women who would like to practice Christian principles, and help them to undertake activities that enable them to improve their community's education, health, social, and economic conditions.
The YWCA in Gitarama has experience with women, youth and children's programs in the areas of agriculture, health, education, vocational training, income-generation, credit and savings, culture, fisheries, and HIV/AIDS awareness. YWCA of Rwanda started its Child-Headed Household (CHH) program in January 2003. With an overarching goal of rendering CHH families sustainably able of taking care of themselves, this program has focused on vocational training, income-generating activities, training in family health, STDs and HIV/AIDS, and training on small enterprise and cooperative management.
As a result of the genocide, Rwanda has experienced a crisis of unaccompanied children. In 1995, the government and social service organizations found that throughout the country (both in urban and rural settings), there existed children who had been orphaned by the war, and had been struggling to survive. These children were found living in their family homes, often times all alone. This group has since been given the name of child-headed households.
In recent years, additional assessments have been done on the state and number of these households, and records now show that despite the time that has elapsed since the war, the number of child-headed households continues to increase. This increase has been attributed to HIV/AIDS. UNICEF reports estimate that there are over 620,000 orphans living in Rwanda, which translates to 18 percent of all children ages 0–14.
Additionally, of these orphaned children, approximately 43 percent are a result of HIV/AIDS. In addition to those orphans who are living on their own, there are other children living in critical conditions within vulnerable households. That vulnerability is, in most of cases, due to the fact that their parents have died because of AIDS and often those who are now supposed to take care of these children are older grandmothers/fathers, or widows/widowers of AIDS. Children are called upon to contribute to the production and survival of the family. Thus, children often drop out of school or do not go to school at all, especially secondary school because of its higher costs.
In 2004, the YWCA began working with Church World Service (CWS) to expand its child-headed household assistance program. This expansion would include assistance to new HIV/AIDS-affected households, as well as training and facilitator grants to new church-based and grassroots organizations seeking to support the growing number of HIV/AIDS-affected orphans and vulnerable children in an appropriate and sustainable way. In terms of enhancing capacity of orphans to facilitate access to schooling, YWCA, in collaboration with CHH representatives, is proposing the creation of an education fund.
An Animal Feed project will be the main source of revenue for this fund. Through this proposed orphaned or vulnerable child (OVC) Animal Feed Micro-Enterprise project, YWCA seeks to establish a way that orphans can have access secondary school fees. YWCA assumes that with this ongoing micro-enterprise project, a long-term scholarship fund can be established to meet the re-occurring educational needs of OVCs.
The project will operate in Gitarama Town, Gitarama Province, and will serve participants from Gitarama Town and the surrounding districts of Muhanga, Ntenyo, Ruyumba, and Kayumbu. The direct beneficiaries of this project will be at least 50 secondary school scholarship recipients per year, with the potential to indirectly benefit over 1,300 members of the children’s families. The scholarship recipients will be selected by the program management committee made up of YWCA and child-headed household (CHH) representatives.
Selection of scholarship recipients will be built around the following criteria: 1) an orphan from a CHH, without any other school support from another organization or local association; 2) an orphan or vulnerable child living within an unemployed HIV/AIDS-affected family (e.g. living with a relative or a caregiver who is in a critical, life-threatening condition, is reaching a very old age, is living with HIV/AIDS, or is a widow/widower of AIDS); 3) An OVC from a household that has not had access to vocational training or micro-project support or has received micro-project support for an enterprise that has been operation for less than one year; and 4) the child must have proof of acceptance to an accredited secondary school or school of higher learning.
The goal of this project is to establish a sustainable method to enable orphans to access and complete their secondary school studies. YWCA intends for this micro-enterprise animal feed-making project to provide a long-term source of revenue for the establishment of an education fund that will provide scholarships to OVCs, thus meeting YWCA’s re-occurring educational resource needs.
The specific objectives are: 1) within six months, to improve the capacity of the YWCA to provide long-term secondary education support to OVCs through the establishment of an income-generating animal feed-making project; 2) within one year, to improve the household income of at least 50 OVC, CHH, and/or their caregivers through the provision of employment opportunities within the animal feed-making project; 3) by the second year, to improve access to complete secondary school studies for at least 50 OVCs per year, with profits generated from the animal feed project; and 4) within one year, to improve women’s economic opportunities and access to micro-enterprise start-up loans through the establishment of a YWCA Women’s Association Revolving Micro-Enterprise Loan Fund.
The YWCA’s Child-Headed Households and community volunteers who are often YWCA members themselves, started this project. YWCA volunteers/members have been trained in managing associations, so that they may easily help child-headed households in their association/group work. Child-headed households and YWCA volunteers have been involved in designing the project and will be involved in implementation, making them true owners of all activities and outcomes. In addition to trained volunteers, YWCA also has staff experienced in working with youth and children.
Support for Church World Service helps make this program possible.
Updated 9/23/04
More On • Health & HIV/AIDS • Women and Children • Education