Poorest children- Consultation Paper 6

To the minister of xxxxx parish,

Minister,

This letter is set out to give you a summary of the project we wish to start in the village.
It also explains the help expected from the Church and primary school she owns.

1. Summary of the project

Kids who are born from very poor families go to school every morning without food and some may even have had to sleep with empty stomach or qualitatively and/or quantitatively insufficient evening meals. However, when they reach P6 level, they have to compete for the tiny number of spaces in secondary education with other kids nationwide who have had meals and all the required school material.

This tiny number of secondary school intake means the kids born from very poor families, even those with high intellectual potential, never get a chance to compete equally at P6 level and so fail to outlive familial poverty.

In a sense, being born in poverty means poverty becomes like a dominant type of hereditary disease that a kid can never manage to escape. So, some families stay in chronic misery generation after generation.

This is why we thought to give a chance to kids from the poorest background by providing one meal a day at lunchtime and school stationary. If possible, the entire class wherein the chosen kids will be picked from, will also benefit from the provision of reading books and stationary i.e. pens and notebooks.

However, due to the very limited funds, the project will only start with 12 children. But aware of the high number of poor kids needing similar help, it is our greatest intention to hold discussions with the Church, as well as the parents of the kids enrolled on the scheme, on how we could, together, increase this number over time.

The aim is to give poor kids a right start in life by allowing them to be equipped to fairly compete for the limited places at the end of P6.

2. Provision from us

We ONLY have the equivalent of 30.000 FRW each month.

According to our calculations, we are certain, with proper sharing out, this sum can feed 12 kids each month, eating once a day and only Monday to Friday and term time.

We are willing to share these calculations with you.

3. Requests to the Church

We request the Church to help in the following areas:

a. To allow the use of her kitchen and crockery in the preparation of the kids’ meal;

b. To give incentives to church members or churchgoers to voluntarily cook the meal every day, Monday to Friday just from their Christian love i.e. without expecting any gains or pay;

c. To delegate a trustworthy person who will work alongside xxxxx xxxxx to effectively ensure that those supposed to eat have indeed eaten; teach them to give thanks either before or after a meal and other lessons deemed consistent with the Christian message and patriotic and tolerant virtues;

d. To provide a small plot of land where the enrolled kids will plant a vegetable garden;

e. If possible, to please start a free offering to help the project as the poorest amongst us are, according to the Christian beliefs, normally under our collective responsibility.

4. Requests to the head teacher

The head teacher is kindly requested to:

a. Provide a teacher willing to guide the enrolled kids on how to use the vegetable garden as productively as possible;

b. This teacher will agree to work as a volunteer expecting no gains or pay.


5. The unique features of this project

This project is totally different from others Rwandans may be used to because:

a. It is not a routine “White” man cash handout. The available funds, mentioned previously, are very small; and this is why we are requesting every volunteer to expect no gains or pay of any kind;

b. This is a very small project starting only with 12 kids. Working in it will not generate any benefits whatsoever. It’s volunteering;

c. This project is helping the kids to help themselves in the future: this means the benefits are not immediate but rather long term. So, the enrolled kids have to be encouraged to study well such that, once in P6, they really take advantage of the service provided to truly compete with other kids who have the blessing of food and school stationary; and

d. In this project, we rely on the input and ideas from the Church and the parents of the enrolled kids to see how we can increase the number of kids on the scheme. This will require a concerted effort from the Church, parents and us.

NB: Other explanations on the selection criteria are available on demand. We shall send you all these documents once we receive a positive feedback from you. It is important to stress that nothing shall go ahead without your approval.

We thank you in advance for your much-awaited reply.

Cordially,

Simon Mbarushimana.

To obtain this letter in Kinyarwanda, please click here.

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