The year ahead will be a pivotal time for Survivors Fund (SURF) as well as for survivors of the genocide.

Our primary focus will be supporting AVEGA Agahozo to extend the organisation’s work to support widows and orphans of the genocide in the Southern Region and Northern Region of Rwanda. We hope to announce a new programme that will enable this work in the new year, which will provide direct support to over 10,000 widows of the genocide, and 40,000 of their dependants.

Our HIV+ Survivors Integration Project (SIP) funded by Comic Relief will conclude in September 2012. We will be commissioning an independent evaluation to determine the impact of the two years of work in partnership with AVEGA Agahozo and Solace Ministries. Of specific interest, will be the progress of the work of AVEGA in the two districts of the Western Region where the organisation is currently operational, as we focus on raising funds to extend their work to the other five districts in the region where at present they have no presence.

We will be working to raise additional funding to support the work of AERG, which is critical at this time as many young survivors in membership of the organisation graduate from secondary school with no access to further education. As such, the majority will struggle to secure a job to enable them to support themselves and their families. We will extend our support to the Kigali Language Exchange, Education into Employment programme, One Dollar Campaign and the Nyagatare Goat Farm on which we are currently working with AERG.

The greatest change in our focus in 2012 will be on strengthening our advocacy, and that of our partner organisations. We will be extending our legal aid project in partnership with Redress with the appointment of a new legal advocacy project coordinator, as well as developing a new stream of work focused on developing a new international advocacy campaign.

In addition, we will be continuing to support the extension and strengthening of the Foundation Rwanda programme to support women survivors of the genocide and the children born to them of rape. There will be no doubt new opportunities that arise over the year ahead too, which will be a busy one but hopefully as productive as the year past.

For your continuing support and donations we are thankful, and we look forward to reporting here further on the work ahead!