Rwanda is a relatively small country in Eastern Africa with about 9 million residents. Rwanda is perhaps most globally known for the mass genocide that destroyed a generation in 1994 leaving nearly 1 million people dead and another 1.2 million refugees. The country is still working to restore peace & reconciliation to this area as a result of the genocide. Click here for more information about Rwanda.
When a group of us visited Rwanda in November 2009, we toured one of the genocide museums in Kigali (Rwanda’s capital) – the bottom three pictures below are of us getting searched to get in and of the mass graves where over 260,000 Rwandans are buried at this location alone.
In the mountainous northern part of Rwanda, in the Gahenke (or Gakenke) district lies a group of communities known as Kivuruga. It is in this 75 square mile area, that World Vision began an Area Developement Program (ADP) that has been joined in partnership by East Central Minnesota through Our Response. During our visit in 2009, we found the land to be beautiful (see pictures below) and the people to be joyful and generous (despite their living conditions).
