Living Bricks Achievements!

Prison Fellowship Rwanda continues its commitment to practical reconciliation efforts. PFR firmly believes that true healing and reconciliation cannot be achieved without practical efforts to restore economic opportunities to those who lives were damaged from the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.

This past Friday was a monumental day in the Living Bricks Village. Two new families moved into their Living Bricks Homes.

The Living Bricks Campaign is a house-building partnership between Prison Fellowship Rwanda and As We Forgive, providing new homes for genocide survivors and ex-prisoners allowing them to live peacefully reconciled communities. This radical idea of a “reconciliation village” is the ingredient that will foster authentic and peaceful living in Rwandan communities that were ravaged with hatred and loss just sixteen years ago.

On Friday, Pastor Deo Gashagaza went to visit the village with friends from two PFR partner organizations. Andrea McDaniel, from the As We Forgive Rwanda Initiative, and Diana Wiley, from True Vineyard came to meet the community members and learn about the radical movement of restoring hearts, minds, and homes through practical reconciliation.

Proudly standing by their new homes waiting to welcome the visitors were Elias Nkubiri with his wife and children and Agnes Mukagatore and her children.

Elias was born in Rwanda in 1959. He was exiled to Burundi when he was young to escape ethnic conflict. As a refugee in Burundi, his life was extremely difficult. He married in Burundi, and in 1995 after the genocide he returned with his wife and four children to seek peace and prosperity. He was unable to discover where his deceased parents owned property and his family was left without stable housing. His children are in primary school and they are struggling to find means to survive. The greatest difficulty for his family is lack of a stable home.

Meeting his family for the first time and hearing the praises streaming from his lips at the joy of home ownership, the family’s relief was tangible upon entry and a tour of their new home.

Agnes has been without a husband for the past fifteen years. After the genocide, her husband was imprisoned for genocide crimes and she was left with three children, no home, and no source of income. Still, the heaviest burden weighing on her is the shame of her past, and her familial association with killers. Ever since her husband’s imprisonment, she has been living transitionally with those who offered to house her and her three children.

This past Friday was Agnes’ second day in her new home. A quiet woman, tears began to flow down her face, and she did away with her typically soft tone of voice. Waving her arms in the air thanking God and Pastor Deo, exuberant words of joy spilled out of her mouth. Because of Living Bricks, she can now rest in the knowledge that her children are able to sleep safely at night.

While a home does not erase the pain of husband sentenced to life in prison or years of discrimination and rejection Agnes faced for her tribal affiliation, the security of a home will offer her safety, comfort and a chance for economic mobility as she continues the journey to promote peace and unity in her own village.

After the Living Bricks Village is complete, PFR will work with Living Bricks families of all backgrounds to work together to establish income-generating activities such as livestock rearing projects or agricultural cooperatives. Now that the recipients have stability in a home, they have greater capacity for economic development and improved livelihood.

Living Bricks is renewing lives, rebuilding communities, and restoring homes. Will you give a brick? Click here to give.

UBUMWE Basketball Camp

Prison Fellowship Rwanda, in partnership with The As We Forgive Rwanda Initiative, and Peace and Love Proclaimers, is hosting a basketball camp to use sport as an engine to promote repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation to Rwanda’s street children. PFR and their partners hope to further the efforts of the existing reconciliation projects by combining the healing power of sport with the principles of reconciliation to contribute to the formation of a more unified and reconciled post-genocide Rwanda.

The group of 85 street children attending the Ubumwe Basketball Camp come to Prison Fellowship Rwanda every Wednesday to receive food, Bible teaching, and structured character-building activities. This camp receives the children on Saturday, giving the children one more meal in their week and a chance for fun and valuable unity teachings.

Many of these children are forced to fend for themselves on the streets, seeking food and shelter. In most cases, due to lack of food and basic necessities, many street children resort to theft and the use of drugs to survive and are often themselves victims of crime and abuse.
For many of the street children, Ubumwe offers the the joys of childhood in the lives of many who suffer from difficult home situations. Ubumwe Basketball Camp has been a huge success and the street children are begging for more!

The sport camp is a seven-week program. Prison Fellowship Rwanda is thankful for their partnerships so that the street children could experience emotional healing, fun, and receive a nutritious meal with the support of loving adults.

Reintegration of Ex-Combatants

PFR is continuing its work in community reintegration of ex-combatants in the Musanze district, Kimonyi sector, in a training program that lasted from February 4th to 8th, 2010. These ex-combatants were formerly associated with FDLR militias in Democratic Republic of Congo and mobilized soldiers from Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF).

Most of these ex-combatants have no education or vocational skills to start a new life for themselves and in the past were mainly exposed to ideas of hatred and genocide ideology. In order to create peaceful communities of reconciliation, PFR conducted a community training on creating business cooperatives, income generating activities, and loan reimbursement.

The training was offered to 60 ex-combatants and 15 ex-prisoners and genocide survivors. As the 60 ex-combatants were new to the community, 60 goats were distributed to get them started on their own income generating projects. While the primary purpose was to equip the participants with necessary skills to develop sustainable livelihood, the overarching goal was to bring together people from different backgrounds to learn how to work together peacefully and develop meaningful and reconciled relationships. Following the training, four cooperatives were formed comprising 75 members.


PFR Executive Director giving out goats to beneficaries in Kimonyi sector

Meet Jean Bosco is a former FDLR soldier. He is 43 years old, and is married with four children. Jean Bosco returned to Rwanda with sorrowful heart and ready to start anew in 2000 after living the life of a rebel in the forest of the DRC for six years.

After he returned to his community and family, he did not have any life skills to help him start a his owm personal business to support his new way of life. But the PFR reintegration program helped him to plan for a new beginning.

‘I gained skills to start and manage a cooperative. Most importantly I was taught about how I should live in peace with everyone in the community for the common good.’