Our Mission & Story

We were carefree children living in the Central African paradise of Rwanda, when our lives were irreversibly transformed. Before the transformation, the boy breathed, ate, and slept soccer, and the girls sang songs, skipped, and clapped in the middle of the streets. We got dirty, running through mud, dust, and wading through dirty rivers. Every time, we washed away the mud, and started a new. We could not imagine a world without second chances, where a breath held too long, a gaze a bit too intense, or even the slightest blink of an eye could signal the permanent end to ones life, or the loss of ones friend, or family member.  We had friends we thought wed have forever, and future plans of unshakable certainty.
 
Finding ourselves in the middle of a ruthless war between the RPF Tutsi soldiers, the Rwandan government soldiers, and the Rwandan genocide carried fourth by extremist Hutu militias, we survived one of the most harrowing experiences of our lives.  We lost friends, family, and neighbors to the war, to the genocide, and to the aftermath. We lost everything, down to the clothes on our backs. We became refugees, internally displaced in our own country fleeing bombs, bullets, and hand weapons from all sides. We later became refugees in other countries in Africa, fleeing insecurity, disease, hunger, xenophobia, and poverty. We survived cholera, dehydration, and unsanitary conditions. We survived the Rwandan war and genocide. Most importantly, we survived miraculously, by the kindness of others.
 
We survived but many did not. Some have forgotten, but we have not. Some conflicts have ended and others have not. We continue to witness conflicts destroying the African Great Lakes Region. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, six million people have died as a result of whats been called the deadliest conflict since the Second World War.  Rape and sexual violence are used as a weapon of war in what is known as the worst place in the world to be a woman. All this is happening at this very moment, as you read this.
 
As survivors and witnesses to unimaginable horror, we can no longer sit idly by, while this level of suffering continues to destroy communities. We work to bring global awareness to these conflicts, to aid in the conflicts end, to establish justice mechanisms post war, and to rehabilitate and rebuild communities post conflict. Together with friends, descendents of other genocide survivors, and do-gooders of this world, we are committed to peace, justice and prosperity in the region. And we welcome you to join us on our journey of transformation for the better, to restore, and rehabilitate whats been destroyed, and rebuild bustling communities.