After two years of planning, finally the long-awaited seventh Reaching Rwanda visit arrived in Kigali in July 2022. SURF Chair, Sam Hunt MBE, who developed the educational programme and led the first visit in 2010 in her professional role as Deputy Headteacher of Sandhurst School, was accompanied by 23 students and teachers from the school, as well as members of the local community who have long–supported SURF and the Reaching Rwanda project.

Each person brought with them gifts donated by other students and well-wishers, including toys, educational materials, and toiletries which were distributed to hundreds of children that the project supports. As well, the group visited Philly’s Place, a unique children’s centre which has been made possible through the funding and support of donors to Reaching Rwanda.

Sam has written up a summary of “The Long-Awaited Visit to Rwanda” with a portfolio of photos from each day of the programme, which you can access by clicking here.

The success of the visit, can be summed up by the testimonial of one of the participants, Alfie:

“Rwanda was one of the most unfathomably phenomenal experiences I have had in my life. The things we witnessed, the things we did, and the people we met, were so incredible that I can’t use words to adequately describe it. It didn’t hit me, until soon after we arrived back, that we had changed so many individual lives, and affected so many people to the extent that we did; I can definitely say, without hesitation, we made an important difference to these people, and those people have made an enormous difference to us.”  

You can learn more about the Reaching Rwanda 2022 Visit and Philly’s Place through the videos here:

You can follow the progress of the Reaching Rwanda programme on its facebook page.