A gust post by our partner Foundation Rwanda

Want to join us in making a difference? Many of you know we started Foundation Rwanda  (FR) in 2007 to empower women survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and their children born of rape through education, counseling and medical support. Christine, a forty-nine-year-old survivor and FR mother of four has seen some of the darkest days imaginable and desperately needs our help. Our Rwandan colleagues have done everything they can in Rwanda to support her immediate needs and are at a loss of where to turn next especially during the challenges she and her children are facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is her story (which she has given us permission to share).

Pictured above with her children, Christine was twenty-two years old during the genocide and was raped repeatedly by countless men resulting in a broken back leaving her in chronic pain. She has carried on bravely in the face of a failed spinal surgery resulting in sciatic nerve damage, severe pain and paralysis for a year. Christine has been unable to work and has struggled in the darkness of total poverty. At one point, the only safe accommodation she could find for her family was in a neighbor’s outhouse where she filled the toilet hole with dirt and covered the latrine so she could lay a small mattress for her and four children to sleep at night. As a family of five, they slept in the outhouse for a year until it collapsed during the rainy season (while they were in it) and they became homeless.

Christine’s dream in life is to have a safe place to call home for her children. “I have been running from house to house with this broken spine and my children for 27 years. My health situation is in great danger. But I am afraid to die because I am worried my children would go on the street if I die.”

We are looking to help Christine raise $25,000 so that the FR and SURF can work with our community to  build a modest home on a small plot of land that would allow her a small garden to grow food for her family year-round in the Rwandan countryside. This would allow her to relocate her permanently.

You can support the campaign by making a donation at gofundme here. Also, please be sure to share the campaign with with this link and use our campaign hashtags: #SupportChristine, #BuildHerAHome, #Hope.

Thank you!