It was on a trip to Rwanda for an unrelated project that I met Rose Gakwandi. An adult survivor of the Genocide of 1994, she felt called to care for the children who were left devastated by that horrific tragedy. She started with some 40 children and now cares for more than 2,000. Not in an orphanage (though that’s in the works), but through personal contact, school supplies, rent, food, vocational training, anything that will see them through and know that they are loved and cared for.
Nothing is more heartbreaking than walking into a small house, smaller than any studio apartment I’ve ever seen in the US, and meeting five children raising themselves because their parents are dead. Yet that’s the reality. I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve shot video, but Rose has dedicated her life to doing something about it.
I first met her in April of 2005 and was so moved by her story that I felt we just had to put together a video for her. I did so free of charge but wasn’t really happy with the result. Later that year I was called to Rwanda for another unrelated project and was able to finish the video I had started six months earlier.
Upon returning to the States, we set up a fund through the National Christian Foundation in hopes that the video would lead people to donate to Rose’s work. It paid off. Now, Rose takes the video and uses it in fund-raising. She sent me an e-mail a few months ago in which she told me that a trip to Holland with the video netted 32,000 Euro (about $44,300). Generous Americans have also used the video to raise funds and donate through NCF.
Network TV, awards, meeting famous people. They all pale in comparison to the work I’ve been privileged to share in with Rose Gakwandi on behalf of Rwanda’s children. Her organization is called Association Mwana Ukundwa (Rwanda’s Beloved Children). If you’d like to know more about them, drop me an e-mail and I’ll send you a DVD, no charge. And if you’d like to contribute to her work, send those donations to National Christian Foundation, 11625 Rainwater Drive, Suite 500, Alpharetta, GA 30009. The fund is “Rwanda’s Beloved Children.”
I can only speak for myself. But once you meet the orphans of Rwanda, you’ll never be the same.
