Each year Survivors Fund (SURF) publishes its Annual Report and Accounts, which are officially filed with the Charity Commission. They are thus publicly available to download and read here.
Over the course of the coming weeks, we will share some of the highlights from the report here.
We starting first with the annual letter from the Survivors Fund (SURF) Chair, Sam Hunt.
The year 2016 has been a more positive one for Survivors Fund (SURF). At the start of the year we received support from Sharing Prosperity, a new supporter of our work. The donation has been used to support Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Youth Entrepreneurship and providing start-ups for small business.
In addition in April 2016 we started up a new project, HIV+ Survivors Empowerment Project (SEP) working in partnership with AVEGA Agahozo. The project is empowering widows to create small businesses, while providing psychological support and reproductive health education to the dependants of the widows. Funded by Comic Relief, the project is projected to improve the lives of 1,181 people. This project runs through to March 2018.
As the genocide becomes more distant, fundraising for survivors becomes more difficult. We consolidated our staff team in Rwanda to reduce our expenditure. Despite these challenges, our team has been creative and with very limited resources have developed new and high impact approaches to meet the needs of survivors.
We have individual success stories to report, particularly women survivors who are rebuilding their lives through income generating projects we have supported. They are helping not only themselves, but creating job opportunities for other survivors as well. And most importantly, by becoming self-sufficient we are giving dignity back to survivors. Such as in the case of Jeanette Mukayiranga:
“Since I joined the entrepreneurship training, my life has changed a lot. I’ve started a small business, selling Tigo phone credit and mobile money services. I don’t earn a lot of money yet, but it’s growing and I have some regular customers. I’m proud that I’m already able to contribute a little to the savings of our group. When our group has saved more money, I want to take a small loan to expand my business and start selling other items as well. What I enjoy most is that, when I need something now, I’m able to buy it myself and don’t have to ask someone to give it to me. That makes me feel so proud!”
Our work is only made possible through the generous funding of individuals and organisations, through the dedication of our partners and staff, and through the commitment of survivors themselves who often support our programmes as volunteers. I would like to thank you all for your precious support and respective participation in this collective work. This annual report highlights our main activities over the year past, the great success that we have enjoyed and the many challenges ahead.
