For detailed information on these projects and their recipients please read our latest newsletter: GO TO NEWSLETTER (PDF - 2MB)

Rwanda 2007 — The Village of Nyamyumba

Our trip to Rwanda was a life-changing experience.  We were invited by the small and dynamic NGO Mabawa to visit a project in the village of Nyamyumba.  Its 500 inhabitants are all survivors, fighting to rebuild a “normal” life. This project’s objective is to help the community stand on its own two feet by 2010. 

After a week on site, learning about existing projects and meeting the villagers, we decided to get involved in the following ways:

• Supporting the “cow bank”
• Building a grocery market
• Fostering local entrepreneurship by granting small loans to three individuals.  Kalisa is running and developing the grocery shop; Alfonse has invested the money in sustainable agriculture, while Innocent is growing his carpentry business
• Setting up a scholarship awarded to Theogene, who has made it from Nyamyumba to the University of Kigali, where he is working towards a degree in economics

More about Mabawa’s activities in Rwanda can be found at www.mabawa.org

Lebanon 2006 — Our First “Unit”       

In the summer of 2006, an estimated 800,000 civilians were caught up a sudden armed conflict between Israel and Lebanon.

Deeply moved by the accounts of a friend involved in the coordination of humanitarian relief in Beirut, we asked if we could help in any way.  We soon learned about the plight of a small family living in Beirut’s ‘Burj Hammoud’ neighborhood in appalling conditions.   Marina and her two young daughters Marie-Belle and Theresa became our first “Unit”. 

With the help of father Wissam from the small local NGO Mission de Vie, we provided Marina and her daughters with the beds, blankets, fridge and storage units they requested.  Once fulfilled their emergency needs, we committed to sponsor Marie Belle and Theresa’s education.  Their mother Marina is involved in workshops run by Mission de Vie where she learns to produce jams and syrups, which she then sells to her increase her income.