Community Christmas at Urukundo Village

What a day at Urukundo Village on Dec. 23! Thanks to a generous donor gift from One Hill at a Time Inc. and its director Helen Kweskin, our annual Christmas Community Day for kids was a day to celebrate. Thank you for your love and generosity.

Wrappers and helpers: Soso, Lucky, Chantel, Olive and Libby. Awesome job, team. So many gifts for the community kids!

Hope House was full to capacity. The new large classroom is such a blessing. We now have the capacity to handle the multitude of children.

Hope House and the new classroom are close to each other, making it easy to direct children to the new building out of the wet weather. Treats were served in both buildings.

Overflow then moved from new classroom to Hope House after first group received treats, gifts and departed.

Over 700 children showed up to enjoy a treat of a juice drink, sumbosa and each a wrapped gift. It was awesome.

There were still more gifts. These were gifts from the Urukundo Foundation to all staff children under 12 years old. A small monetary gift is given to the staff member. Soso, John and Claude helped out with transporting gifts to Mama’s living room.

Special event

The baptism of Lani Aleen was a special event. Lani is the daughter of Urukundo Executive Director Jean Marie Ntware.

Lani is my adopted granddaughter. Take notice that she looks like me. Ha ha.

Two grandmothers

Mama can still dance. It’s not the jitterbug, but it is still fun.

New neighbors

Peter and Cherrie Jacques— the new directors at the Victory Home of Champions — came to call.

We are very happy to welcome them to Rwanda. Victory and Urukundo have enjoyed a relationship for many years, thanks to the former director for Victory, Grace Van Mil. The soccer team from Victory was the first to come and enjoy playing foote ball with our older kids about eight years ago. Victory Home is an NGO (non-governmental organization) from Canada.

Along with Peter, Cherrie and me in the photo are Mama Grace, left, and Papa JoJo, both long-time friends from Victory.

May 2019 Newsletter

Successful fundraiser

Here it is the end of May. What an exciting month it has been!

Now on my mind is going home to Urukundo.

Of course, the last week in April has to be in the May newsletter. That last week in April saw the “Bridging Pittsburgh to Rwanda” fund-raising event.

Here are members of the bridge team plus two Urukundo siblings, Tresor and Solange, and myself. Awesome group. The three of us told the crowd about Urukundo.

The celebration included a get-acquainted event.

Jewelry and crafts from Urukundo Village were for sale.

The event was well organized and went very well. Everyone had a good time, and funds were raised for the Urukundo Foundation/Hope Made Real.

Funds were raised, but it wasn’t enough to finish building much needed classrooms for the elementary school. However, it was more than enough to pay for a much needed, handheld portable X-ray machine for the Dental Clinic.

MaxRay handheld portable X-ray

Included with the machine are the charger, battery, strap/holster, premium sensor and software.

This is very good news.

Urukundo Dental Clinic wishes to thank Vector R&D Inc., Dr. Richard Reckmeyer and the many others who made this acquisition possible.

Community Christmas on Dec. 21

Christmas for community children was a bit overwhelming. We knew it would be more than last year, but the over 600 who attended was more than we expected.

Kids arrived early, waiting for doors to open at 1:30 p.m.

Seating plan went well.

Hope House is full and runneth over.

Overflow. On outside retaining wall and steps.

All children were served inside and outside.

We decided that we could not use chairs this year. Mats were placed on the floor in Hope House. Benches were along the far wall for teens. Chairs on platform were for mamas with babies.

Ok now we are ready. We think.

Boxed milk, meat sumbosa and juice for those who cannot tolerate milk were the treats for the day.

Entertaining so many children, it was necessary to have not only a system to serve refreshments but also to give gifts and have an exit setup so that there was crowd control. Interesting!!

Plan A. Give refreshments, collect trash. Girls line up for Door No. 1.

Boys line up for Door No. 2.

Receive gift, exit building. It worked.

Didn’t need Plan B.

Door No. 1 girls.

Door No. 2 boys.

Executive secretary Eric and Johnny.

Claude, Luki, Aline, David, Soso and John helped serve the kids and did the outside cleanup after the finish. They did a great job. Thanks, guys.

Ready for Christmas

Claude, Aline, Luki, Claudine, Egide, John, David, Diane and Soso

Mama and Baby Project

Mama and three little girls came to Mama & Baby Project for help. Thanks to so many of you, we can help. The big girls like their new clothes. Lookin’ good. Baby is 3 months.  She also received clothing for her age and size. Mama’s front porch is the distribution center. Love it.
We are careful to remember the other children in a family and give them something also. Don’t want hard feelings when the  baby gets gifts and others don’t. Learned that from being the mom of five.
This little one is a first child, and mama is so happy with a gift of clothes. The baby girl’s name is Belise.
This little premie is loved by her mummy and Urukundo. Her mother came back to say thank you. I share that thanks with all of you.

Measuring our growing students

Student nurse Charlotte and John Paul combined forces to weigh and measure all 702 of our students for a growth chart to follow each year.
We hope to keep a record that we can share with the parents as we watch their children grow on a yearly basis.

The preschool was first on the schedule.

Stepping on a scale and then backing up to the wall is not hard unless you are 3 years old and getting instructions from a woman who speaks only English. John Paul was a godsend and such a help by speaking both English and Kinyarwanda.
Project moved on to the Primary School.

March 2018 Newsletter

Do you remember the stone path in an article in the March 2012 newsletter? Look it up.
It still applies today in March 2018 as it did in 2012.

The stone path has grown from five stones to many stones and has been moved to the outside boundary to have enough space. It is a great way to honor contributions to education.

Help us continue to provide quality education where it is needed most. We will build a new path to the secondary school (high school) with your stone and a substantial gift of $1,000 or more for construction of the school.

The amount needed for the new high school for more than 700 students is very high ñ US$300,000. No one church and most individuals cannot afford such a gift, but if all could give what they can afford, it would be a big help in reaching our goal of providing quality education to the vulnerable children in Rwanda.

Give from your heart. Help to build the future.

Mama

Computer Training

New to the Urukundo sign is ICDL.

School, Dental, Foundation and now ICDL for computer training.

With ICDL, an advanced computer training class with qualified teachers is available to the community.

Police, bankers, businesspeople, district employees and any other interested groups or individuals are invited. Classes will begin in March 2018. They are in process as you read this sign.

To those readers in Rwanda: Delighted to have you join us. Call 0788919754 for information.

It might be a bit of a trip from outside the country, but you are also welcome.