Rwanda-Legacy of Hope has been established in Rwanda since April 2011. Is a local Organisation based in Rwanda His stated to support Social Welfare Programme in Rwanda since 2011 aimed at improving living conditions and providing better educational and training opportunities and health.
HISTORY AND CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND
It has been 19 years since Rwanda was bathed in blood from history’s most effective killing spree. The brutal murder of nearly 1 million people in 100 days by machetes and clubs was one of the most horrific and tragic episodes in the 20th Century.
Rwanda is a country where 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, life expectancy is 49 years, literacy is 70 percent, and 400,000 children (60 percent of those under 20 years old) are orphans, often living on the streets or being cared for by extended families in deprived conditions. Many women are living with the traumatic consequences of rape and violence and HIV/Aids infection which is often passed to their children through breast milk.
Rwanda-Legacy of Hope –(Umurage W’ibyiringiro) has been established in Rwanda since April 2011. Founded by Rwandan born Pastor Osee Ntavuka. Rwanda Legacy of Hope is a registered Christian organisation based in Rwanda to provide support through a Social Welfare Programme in Rwanda aimed at improving living conditions by providing health care and better educational and training opportunities.
Pastor Osee Ntavuka has good reason to want to establish this important part of the Christian organisation’s work. Sadly, Osee and his family experienced at first hand the human cost of the tragedy as it unfolded in April 1994. He and his wife each lost close family members, including mother and father on both sides. Both brothers of his wife, Louise, were buried alive and perished. Their eldest son Fabrice was missing for 6 months, presumed dead, but was later miraculously found in his home village suffering from trauma. As a result of this Fabrice was unable to speak to his parents for months afterwards. Although Rwanda has shown encouraging signs of recovery in recent years, it still faces the wounds of the past and there is a great need for medical help to be provided to women, children and the elderly who are suffering through lack of equipment or doctors and nurses and the provision of basic education.
Rwanda is a country that has begun to overcome its past and is now optimistically looking forward to a brighter future. It has a growing economy, still heavily based on agriculture and tourism but its population is looking to further Rwanda’s growth in all areas of commerce, medicine and education.
Rwanda-Legacy of Hope in October 2011 invited a senior physiotherapist Paul Sumner from All Nations Ministries (UK) and Nikuswe Grace a nurse from Belgium to visit Rwanda. Their report revealed that Rwanda was in significant and urgent need of skilled medical specialists. Currently, the country only has 4 traumatologists,2 urologists,1 plastic surgeon and 6 general surgeons serving a population of over 11,000,000! The surgical care is basic due to a shortage of skills and training and lack of equipment and many rural health centres, run by dedicated nursing staff, sadly lack the necessary medical equipment to serve their patients effectively.
Following a Needs Assessment conducted in a number of local hospitals, Rwanda Legacy of Hope devised a strategic action plan to invite a medical team of volunteer surgeons, students, nurses and allied health professionals to come to Rwanda in February 2012 with the following remit:
– to operate and provide treatment and;
– to assess staff training and equipment needs.
The team would specifically focus their efforts on rural hospitals. In addition, volunteer teachers and IT specialists would form part of the educational support to local schools.