We're getting excited about college at my house. The first son has some applications out, and any day now the mail will come and there'll be drama, excitement, maybe some disappointment, but no matter what, he will get to go to college somewhere. We are so lucky.
Last November, that same boy and I went to a fundraiser for Orphans for Rwanda, an organization founded in 2004 by Dai Ellis and Oliver Rothschild. The two met while working on related projects with Columbia University’s Center for Global Health and Economic Development and the Clinton Foundation on HIV/AIDS programs . They realized there was a need going unfilled: orphans and other socially vulnerable young people in Rwanda needed help if they were going to pursue a university education and ultimately become leaders in economic development and social reconciliation in Rwanda.
Children and teenagers who had lost their families in the 1994 genocide or were losing families to HIV/AIDS needed more than secondary school if they were going to help rebuild. In Rwanda, only 1 in 200 are college graduates -- mostly wealthy, and mostly men. Standardized exams tend to skew for education and background, so the very poor are less likely to go to a university. ORI seeks to change that, to "transform the pool of intellectual capital." (I love thinking about it that way.)
Recently on HumanKind we've been talking about the magnitude of the orphan challenge in Africa, and we've highlighted many individuals and groups who partner with African governments and communities to support kids who have lost their families. Orphans of Rwanda is one of the first programs to target university education as an essential element of support.
At the fundraiser my son and I attended, Dr. Paul Farmer -- who is right up there with Superman for me -- spoke about a lesson he learned from his work in Haiti: In a support program meant to help a country rebuild, it's essential to include university education for young people in areas of extreme economic poverty. It's essential to build human capital; it's what's really needed if the country is going to rebuild and lead itself to stability. Otherwise, the cycle that produces the country's next leaders takes much longer.
Starting at the Gisimba Memorial Center orphanage (thanks, camera_rwanda, for your beautiful pictures on Flickr) in Kigali, Dai and Oliver began a program that offered full scholarships to 11 kids. Now, four years later, they are able to pay for 68 more spots in Rwandan universities -- which is awesome, but they had 1,500 applicants -- bringing the total sponsored to 121. In March, the first students will graduate, a huge accomplishment, and one that demonstrates the favorite thing we love to talk about: what's possible.
From the outset, Dai and Oliver understood that it would not be enough to send the kids to school. An ORI scholarship includes skills training, such as time management and money management. The scholarship covers housing and health care, and the organization supports the orphans through the whole program, much like their parents or extended family would have done. In addition to the scholarships, ORI has ancillary programs that dovetail with the main mission and support the students in other ways. On their donations page, you will find many ways to help. For example, I discovered that a full sponsorship is $2,250 per student, per year. If you're not up to a full sponsorship, you can donate $500 for tuition, or $100 for books, or tell your friends about the good things happening in Rwanda after so many difficulties and tell them about ORI. So many ways to help.
A few weeks ago I talked to ORI Executive Director Michael Brotchner, just before he left New York for Rwanda to welcome a new batch of scholarship recipients. The last time he met with newly accepted students, "bright-eyed and eager to start," they went around the room introducing themselves, telling their stories -- about losing families, witnessing atrocities, being parents to their siblings. To each of these 68 new college kids, "graduating is like a miracle," Michael says. "When you speak with the students, many of them express dreams of building companies or organizations that employ or support orphans." Michael has a new blog about his visit and the start of school.
Reading a little about the sponsored students, like Jacqueline and Emmanuel, or watching the ORI video below, I see the same youthful exuberance and excitement that I see in my son. I can't help but hope that I will drum up enough readers and benefactors that the whole pool of 1,500 applicants will have the same opportunity my son and these 68 will have this coming year -- I know this is what their mothers would have wanted for them. This morning my boys and I decided over breakfast that we would help with books this year, using some money they recently got from their grandparents, and maybe next year try to do a full sponsorship, who knows. You can donate here. Please share this post and video with all your friends who have a longing to help. This is a good one.
Coming up this next week, we'll spend a little more time getting a few more glimpses of how Rwanda could be a model for transforming poverty and disease in developing countries around the world and creating a world fit for kids.
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