Women and Children
The Women’s and Children’s Department contains the following programmes:
- Women and Conflict Resolution
- Women’s Rights
- Children’s Rights
- Support for two centres for Street Children (Mwana Nshuti)
- Women & HIV-AIDS
- Women in Dialogue
- Bigogwe
This programme teaches women to understand and resolve non-violently family and community conflicts. We teach many mechanisms of conflict resolution like negotiation and mediation. We also bring women together to debate certain subjects about conflict resolution in Rwanda, like the gacaca process, the participation of women in the process, and its impact on women and their families.
The principal goal of this action is to implant ideas of the rights of women in the Rwandan population. We will target women generally, but especially vulnerable women like widows and young mothers. We will train the women as well as their spouses and other members of their families and local leaders. Eventually, we hope to use radio as a means of popular education in Rwanda, as well as creating support structures for abused and vulnerable women in rural areas.
This programme for children’s rights encourages the respect of the rights of Rwandan children and their place in our society. With seminars and debats and various popular education techniques (theatre, music, sport, etc), we teach children to know their rights and to respect the rights of others. We also teach parents and guardians as well as local leaders (police, pastors, local authorities) to know and respect the rights of their children.
Mwana Nshuti is our programme for street children and other very vulnerable children. We support two centres/schools for these children, one at Kigali and one at Gitarama. There the children learn academic subjects and as well as follow professional training courses in subjects like hairdressing, sewing and tailoring, baking, agriculture, and animal raising. These schools do not have dormitories for the children, but they stay with families in the community.
This programme educates women about HIV-AIDS with the aim of preventing further spread of the virus in Rwanda, reducing stereotypes and judgements about those who are HIV-positive, and encourage women to work together. After attending a seminar, women typically come together to create a community-based association of seronegative and seropositive women where they can work together to help those who are ill, overcome prejudice in the community, and start development projects. This community-based approach to HIV-AIDS care has shown significant promise as a means of alleviating the devastation caused by the disease.