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News from Urukundo for November 2012

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Greetings from Urukundo, the home that love built.  What an exciting month. Some good days, and some not so good. Our kids all came home from boarding school. It was great to have all 44 of them home at one time. Worship was outstanding. They were here a short time and went on holiday with extended family. The time at Urukundo passed too quickly, but they will be home for Christmas. Even the primary kids are on holiday. With all who are away we still have 21 kids in the houses. It is never lonely here.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

The Rwanda Commission for Children has taken some very positive steps to protect vulnerable children and is asking orphanages (institutions) and homes for children to assist in connecting children to their extended families.

The government is endeavoring to give responsibility to the Rwandan people for the children connected in any way to their families. In compliance with the new regulations set forth by the government to protect the rights of the children, Urukundo Foundation has enlisted the families to take part in the lives of the children. This includes Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Mothers or Dads with little or no income. I do not know how this will work but we know how important family ties are. Preserving the Rwandan family is one of our criteria at our home for children.

Urukundo is and will remain home to the children. They have been family for 6 years and have grown up here. These are kids from 7 to 19 years of age. The children will continue to have a choice as to where they will spend holidays, which they have always had. Not much will change, but in writing we conform to government regulations and keep our kids secure. Urukundo will, with the help of our sponsors, continue to cover tuition, school supplies, medical insurance, savings at Fina Bank for the kids, and food and lodging here at home. Their families will take care of them while they are with them. This also has not changed. Unless there are further changes by the government there will be no effect on the primary and Nursery kids or the older adolescents who have no extended families.   God in Charge.

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A Birthday Wish

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Last year for my 81st Birthday in December I requested Legos for the kids at Urukundo Village and the Cyakabiri Preschool and the response was wonderful.

For my 82nd birthday I am asking my family and friends to consider a monetary gift to help finish construction on the 3 classrooms at the yet unnamed Primary School.  The amount does not have to be great just a gift from the heart.

The gift can be sent to

HOPE MADE REAL
PO BOX 3222
WILLIAMSPORT, PA 17701

In memo line:  "school construction".

Thank You.

This Month's Presentation : The Farm and its Place in the Vision

Here are the facts. We hope to be a self sufficient organization one day.  For the last four years we have taken definite steps toward making this HOPE REAL.  It is happening. In 2007, with the vision already in place, we purchased our first land which we used for the chickens.  The poultry farm started with this piece of land, 1 small house and 40 Rwandan free-range chickens. It has now grown to 2 large houses and 300 quality layers. The original small house is now an incubator for baby chicks, layers to replace older layers when they stop producing and become the makings of chicken soup. Our chickens provide eggs for our children - one egg a week for our preschool kids - and we have a good market in the Gitarama and Ream hotels which buy all the eggs we can produce. Some customers order from Kigali - our eggs are good eggs!

Alongside the layers we have 4 houses for broiler chickens. Broilers are raised for meat and we have 200 in each house. They are purchased as day old chicks, raised for 3 months and shipped to the market.  These are also sold by the kilo. Each month the oldest chickens go to market and new day old chicks take their place.

Next on the production chain are rabbits. We have a rabbit hutch big enough for 60 rabbits. We sell the overflow to others who want to start their own hutches and we slaughter and freeze the rest. It is a good meat for our kids and we also sell it to the community. Goats are raised only for meat. We just slaughtered 6, packaged and froze them for future use. We do not keep a lot of them as they are hard to control. They can escape through the tiniest holes in the fence. Then they are never seen again.

We are blessed to have been given a donation to buy a large freezer by a group in Canada. Our electricity fluctuates but the generator kicks on and all is well. We are able to freeze meat and vegetables to help
with food costs.

Another revenue source is our pigs. Yes, we do breed pigs. We have 5 mama pigs and one strong male.  Each mama gives birth to 9 or more piglets at a time. The piglets sell very well.  We may in time butcher
pigs, but not yet. Pork is not a big seller in the country markets. Rwandans are just beginning to appreciate pork and to serve it in some restaurants.

We have two cows. One gives enough milk for our babies, the second one will give birth in two months and we will have milk for all the kids.  In time with our own eggs and milk we hope to start a small bakery.
We will experiment on our own kids and if the bread and cakes are good we could start a small business in the community.

With manure from pigs and cows we have developed a Bio-gas field and now cook with bio-gas instead of all wood. We are helping the environment, having less smoke in our kitchen and making a healthier
work place for our cooks.

Our vegetable gardens are awesome. We harvest, feed our kids, share with our neighbors and sell in the market. Felicitie and Benjimin are in charge of the gardens.

LOOKING AHEAD
Next months presentation will be the Urukundo Learning Center.
I would like to be able to report then that the school is ready to receive 50 students in January 2013 but unless the funding happens the school will not be ready for the new term. If you intended to contribute to the building fund and have been putting it off now would be a good time to include that in your end of the year giving Hope Made Real is a 501c3 organization.

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Graduation Day at Cyakabiri Preschool

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What a wonderful day for 47 kids and their proud parents with the wearing of the robe and mortar board as the first graduates from Cyakabiri Preschool.

The kids lined up for the march from the school to Hope House was spectacular.  Led by the teachers they paraded in line for all to see followed by parents and friends.

A vision of blue and gold

Presenting  diplomas to the graduates was the highlight for the Director of Cyakabiri Preschool.
The speakers were Felix, the contractor who built the preschool and is building the primary school, and one of the parents.  The kids put on a skit about education.  Songs were sung and two of the students gave a speech.

Now the younger kids want to know when we will have another graduation. That is so great because it gives them something to work toward.

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Progress on the Primary School

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The floors are finished. Blackboards are in place. Furniture ordered and more than half paid for. Another $300 is needed and Tom Nunnally's offer to match funds is still out there.

The outside is being dressed up. Trees have been planted to hold the soil, the cement frontage is in place and gutters are there for ground drainage. We still need the rain water harvest tank and foundation to set it on plus toilets. The school needed an access from the Preschool down to the Primary School. The path had to go through two of our neighbors yards. We are blessed wiiith good neighbors who care and both have given us the right of way with no compensation expected. We are blessed to have such good caring neighbors. Building the path will include taking out a wall, building steps and providing security. Benjimin the builder and Abis, one of our boys, started work on this project today.

about 4 feet of this stone wall will be removed.

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Walkway Stones

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This stone in memory of Pastor Marge Glascow is very special. She was a dear friend and served in mission in Africa after the Genocide. I first met Pastor Marge when she returned from a mission trip to the refugee camps caring for Rwandan citizens in 1995. She was very influential in my desire to do something for the
children, survivors of the genocide. At that time Marge was pastor of Oval United Methodist Church, Oval, Pennsylvania. Oval UMC still supports this ministry. I know Marge supported that during her life. Marge retired because of ill health but continued supporting the Urukundo Home for Children through Hope Made Real ministry. I was touched when, through her family, she requested in lieu of flowers that donations be sent in her memory to Urukundo Home for Children, Hope Made Real.

I will miss my friend as will many others. She rests in the Lord.

And our second stone this month is in memory of Susan Cacko. This stone was placed by friends and family and is a tribute to education.

Greetings

From Urukundo Village and Learning Center, Mama Arlene and all the Urukundo kids!  A newsletter, hopefully with pictures. This is testing my skills and thanks for taking the time to read.

October has been an eventful month, to say the least. Most recently, our servers in the US were temporarily disabled by Hurricane Sandy, while in Rwanda my Mac computer crashed, which was the low point of the month.  The high point? The completion of a number of major projects. Please bear with me as I write this newsletter without my trusty Mac - it may seem a bit strange and indeed it is. The reason is simple.  I am attempting to write on a Dell, and teaching an old dog (woman) new tricks (procedures) applies here. My computer is in need of a Mac doctor (so I have told my children) and has gone to Kigali, to Etienne our computer technician. Etienne is the young man we supported at KIST University and he is now a graduate with a degree in Computer Science. He will do his best to save my documents so that when the time comes and a new Mac appears the documents can be transferred to it.  Yes, I do believe in miracles.

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Making Excuses

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All directions on this Dell are in French, a language that I know very little about. Yes, I do know there is a way to change the directions to English but I just don't know how to do it.  Even the spellcheck is in French so every word I write has a red squiggle line under it because I write in English. I know Sarah our media person will check the spelling closely before she publishes. More work for Sarah!


I am finding there is so much I need to learn. Another example: I use two cameras to take pictures. On one there is no date printed on the picture, but on the other date stamps all photos 2011, so pictures taken with that camera appear to be at least a year old. This was pointed out to me by a friend. Last month's pictures of the Biogas project were dated 2011, yet this is a new project for 2012 and no pictures could have been taken in 2011! The date has been changed on the camera now, thanks to Jean Marie's expertise. I am blessed to have young people here who seem to have been born with the know-how to work with the technology changes. Digital cameras are wonderful but confusing.


Ok, now for pictures. October pictures are on the now defunct Mac.

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Education Support for the Poor and Needy Children of the Community

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Just a reminder.  But an important one!

329 children attend school because you care. This project is ongoing and each year you respond. Thank you.

For those who are new, a $15 gift supplies a uniform, back pack, shoes, excercise books, pencils and jacket for a child in need of education but without any financial means to pay for it.

Thank you for your support.