Continuing our series of articles from our Annual Report 2025/26, we outline here our work on our Philly’s Place project.
Central to the Reaching Rwanda programme is Philly’s Place, a unique children’s centre which opened in 2020 through the funding and support of donors to Reaching Rwanda. The centre is equipped with 2.5 tonnes of the best educational equipment from the United Kingdom, including 4,300 books, donated through the Reaching Rwanda project.
Philly’s Place offers free tuition in Kinyarwanda, English, maths and science, technology, art, music, drama, sport and dance, as well as teaching valuable skills like sewing, knitting and beadcraft to over 1,000 local children of all ages. The aim is to provide fun, learning experiences for children in the Bugesera area in after school programmes as well as every Saturday and throughout school holidays in order to support children’s learning by providing exciting, enriching experiences to children of all ages. All services are provided to the children free of charge. The centre is over run every week and is becoming an important community hub.
In 2024 a new purpose-built permanent centre was opened for young people in and around Ntarama. SURF Chair, Sam Hunt MBE, conceived of the idea for the centre, which is named in honour of her grandmother, Philly. It is testament to her vision, and her tireless fundraising, as well as the dedication of our SURF Rwanda team in heading up the construction work, that has brought to life the centre which will provide an incredible opportunity for hundreds, and over time thousands, of children and others in and around Ntarama. It is an area and community with which Survivors Fund (SURF) has a long-established connection, having first built housing for survivors there with the support of Comic Relief, and then later (with the support of Network for Africa and others) a Health Centre which continues to run successfully under the management of our partner AVEGA. In 20205 a new basketball court, and play area was completed, as well as the construction of a surrounding perimeter wall to secure the site.
Philly’s Place has come to fruition through the support of hundreds of individual donors, many of which are readers of this newsletter – so for your support, we are most grateful. And we extend thanks as well to the hundreds of students and parents and teachers at Sam’s school, Sandhurst School, and others that have visited Rwanda through the Reaching Rwanda programme and donated items to the centre, as well as raising funding to contribute to the build.