This post and its content have been moved to the dedicated Page for the Rudi Education program.

Where Are We Working?

Rudi International is based in Goma, the eastern side of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This region is the most war-torn region of the country since decades now. The Education program is focused on a neighborhood called “Lac Vert”, at about 10 km from Goma city. The neighborhood is characterized by a great need for education. We are mostly sponsoring children at a specific school called “Nyabyunyu Primary School”.

The Beginnings

The idea came since the creation of the organization because our aim is to improve people’s lives in areas affected by war.

Sometime in July 2012, a year after Rudi International was created, Arsene Tungali, our Co-founder and Executive Director who is a university student in Agronomic Sciences went to the surroundings of Goma to do research. While he was in Lac Vert, he came across the school and was interested in knowing how people in this region were doing to be able to send the kids to school. He met with some of the school leaders in the area. The leaders explained to him how difficult it was for the parents to pay for the children to stay in school and how this was resulting in dozens of children being kicked out of school almost every day. Since this is the very nature of the needs Rudi International was created to respond to, Arsene went back home and suggested the creation of Rudi Education scholarship program.

The Purpose

We always wanted to take part in the change we want to see happen in the Congo; one of the ways to make this possible is to invest in the future. We are working with wonderful kids who had lost any hope for their future because of the conditions they are obliged to live in. The first day we met with their families, one could hear that they had no hope for a future and that they just waited and see what other kind of evil the days were bringing them.

We are proud to say that, after a year of close relationship with the kids and their families, we can see them embrace a positive view of their future. They now have brighter visions for the future because we have been teaching them about being a visionary; we gave them examples of visionaries and other world leaders who have inspired generations. Beyond paying for their school fees, our purpose is to create a new generation of young people who will be able to build a better future for their nation.

The Funding Question

Rudi International works through donations from friends, classmates, co-workers, co-visionaries, and colleagues who trust us and who are ready to journey with us towards the change we are working on in Africa, in general, and the Congo, in particular. Numerous generous donors from every corner of the world to whom we are very thankful have been supporting the work of Rudi International since its creation.

Rudi Education works with sponsors that are assigned to specific children. The sponsor supports the child through single or multiple donations. The number of supporters and donors is increasing every day and for multiple opportunities. Apart from paying tuition for the children, we also hold afterschool activities that sometimes require additional financial support.

Moreover, thanks to our partner organizations Mwangaza International and Adoption Divine Moment, our outreach is much broader and our network of supporters goes farther than we could have made it happen.

Selection of Beneficiaries

There are multiple children who need help to continue school in the area we are currently working in. It is imperative that we define criteria for selecting which children will enter our program. Two main criteria determine the beneficiaries of the Rudi Education scholarship:

–          The kids need to have proven the capability to succeed in school. We invest in the brightest of their class so to encourage them to do even more but also to encourage the others to do better in order to probably benefit from our scholarship as well.

–          The kids need to be from a family with no regular income. To be honest, the large majority of families in the area is without employment and would need support to keep their children in school. But we always check on the school payment book and see those kids who are lagging behind in tuition payment to the school. The next step after selecting some based to the school payment records, we go and talk to the families to make sure they have a proven problem that doesn’t allow them to pay the school fees on time.

After two years experience working with the children we have been with so far, we have determined this method to work pretty well. As time goes, we are learning and plan to improve our selection methods depending on the experience we gain with the current project. We, at Rudi International, are very grateful for the trust we have from our network of supporters.

Past: The First Year

This program started with the school year 2012-2013. We supported 15 children from the Lac Vert area plus 1 young lady from a different school district in Goma. Working with this particular girl helps us compare the impact of our work in Lac Vert area to the impact we would have in a more urban district. The choice for this particular student was dictated by the fact that, although she lives in Goma town, she still has quite the same problems or her family faces problems similar to those faced by the families we are working with in Lac Vert.

At the end of the year, we have been really happy for the grades of all the 15 children who all passed their classes. Unfortunately, the girl studying in Goma was the one whose results were not good. After analyzing her case—she had had a hard time adjusting to the new school she attended this particular year—with her sponsor, the latter decided to give her a second chance to succeed. The rule, however, is that if one of the kids we support come to fail, we automatically remove her/him from the list and take a new one.

Present: The second year

The second year of the education program is the 2013-2014 school year that started in September 2013. Our goal to double the number of children supported through Rudi Education was met thanks to our partners and all the sponsors who took on new children for the first time or in addition to the children they had been sponsoring since the first year. We, at Rudi, are very thankful to God for all of our partners in this vision for a better Africa.

Future: The Way Forward

You too can be part of this great project that helps design a better future for the children of DRC. Please contact us to find us how you can get involved. Apart from paying their school fees, the kids benefit from a series of after school activities that broaden their perspective on life beyond the classroom.

Donate here today.