Tag Archives: #Rwanda

Maureen Mutoni with some of the children aided by her program.

UCU alum mission to transform rural Rwanda


Maureen Mutoni’s mission is to promote education and social development in Rwanda.
Maureen Mutoni’s mission is to promote education and social development in Rwanda.

By Pauline Luba
She is just 27, but Uganda Christian University (UCU) graduate, Maureen Mutoni, already has a mission to be one of Rwanda’s most passionate changemakers. 

As a 2024 Mandela Washington Fellow, Mutoni recently completed a business and entrepreneurship leadership program at Drake University in the United States. From this course, she says, she learned “how to build systems that work,” and it is this spirit that she has taken back to her roots in Rwanda.

In Rwanda, just like it is with many developing countries, she says education is often more of a privilege than a right. Born to a Rwandan family that spent decades in Uganda as refugees, Mutoni’s father, a farmer with four wives and 18 children, and her mother, a housewife, did not fully have the benefit of having a formal education. 

But Mutoni was determined to chart a different course. 

“Moving when I was younger was very significant in my life,” she reflected. “It contributed so much to the person I am today.” 

Her educational journey took her from Kagarama Secondary School to Cornerstone Leadership Academy Rwanda, and eventually to UCU, where she pursued a Bachelor’s of Economics and Management. 

“I loved the community at UCU,” said the soft-spoken Mutoni. “It was serious, disciplined and had a tight-knit Rwandan community.” 

Behind her gentle demeanor is a relentless spirit, one that refuses to be confined by circumstance or complacency. Her passion for education and youth empowerment took root during her time working with schools in remote Ugandan communities. 

Maureen Mutoni with some of the children aided by her program.
Maureen Mutoni with some of the children aided by her program.

These experiences laid the foundation for what would become the Inspire Change Foundation, which Mutoni officially launched in late 2022, to provide inclusive and equitable opportunities for education, empower the youth and support the women to promote financial inclusion.

By 2023, the foundation had begun full operations, focusing on improving education access for children in rural Rwanda. Today, the organization supports 133 learners, providing essentials like books, uniforms and school supplies. It also works with parents to form savings groups that ensure continued education into secondary school.

But the road hasn’t been easy. One of the biggest challenges she faced was the mindset of parents. 

They didn’t value their children’s education,” she said. “Some would say, ‘I can’t afford this,’ even when it was about a simple pen.” 

Mutoni persisted — often funding the initiative herself in the early days. Over time, partnerships with local governments, schools and Non-Governmental Organizations like Kidzone helped the foundation gain traction.

According to her organization’s website, she also took the initiative to reach out to the parents and guardians of these learners. She believed that finding sustainable ways to support them was the key to unlocking true potential.

Technology, Mutoni believes, will play a critical role in shaping the future of education in Rwanda. Her foundation is now working to introduce digital learning tools, creating school libraries, and launching nationwide competitions that celebrate creativity and literacy. Some of children there have never even seen an iPad or a toy, according to Mutoni.

Balancing her full-time job and her work at Inspire Change is no easy feat, but Mutoni says it’s all about time management and the passion she has for what she does. She is currently the program’s head at Afri-Farmers Markets

For aspiring young social entrepreneurs in Rwanda, Mutoni, who believes her ultimate goal is to touch people’s lives, offers a simple, but powerful advice: “Just do it. Share your ideas and act on them. Have a vision for where you want to be.”

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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org

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Powerful lesson from reconciled Rwandans


Delight Cajo in her first trip to Rwanda
Delight Cajo in her first trip to Rwanda

(NOTE: The author of this article is a fourth-year honors student pursuing her Bachelor’s in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Uganda Christian University. These are her August 2019 impressions of a first time trip to Rwanda as part of the American-based Uganda Studies Program.)

By Delight Cajo M. Salamula                                                                       

The Nyamata Genocide Memorial in Kigali is where I saw, touched and felt the atrocity of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group of people. It was inside a catholic church where Tutsi men, women and children fled, hoping to be protected from the “enemy” – the Hutu. Tutsi men were on the outer end of this five-acre plot to shield thrice their number of vulnerable women and children whose strength could not measure up to theirs. A book, “Mirror to the Church,” estimates that 5,000 Tutsi perished during the massacre at Nyamata and that 8,000 victims are buried in mass graves behind the church.

Bloodshed was the theme of the Easter holiday. But this time, it was not the blood of Jesus Christ claiming its dominance through his resurrection. It was the bloodshed of best friends killing each other. The irony was that the Hutu and Tutsi, along with a pygmy tribe called Twa,were under one king in 1994 in Rwanda. They have the same language and cultural norms.

The movies “Hotel Rwanda” and “Sometimes in April” and the “Mirror” book by Emmanuel Katongole give only a glimpse of the emotional and physical calamity that happened on the Rwandan soil April 7 to July 15 in 1994. The origin of this massacre had an economic backbone. The colonialists split already existing Rwandans into the three ethnicities based on how they looked and how much land and cattle they owned. The Tutsi were the rich with more privileges of higher paying jobs and their children studying in better schools compared to the Hutu and Twa. The Hutu, aggravated to think the Tutsi were the major bottleneck to their development, planned the killing for about a year before it started.

 

Delight Cajo and students in the Uganda Studies Program learn a Rwandan dance as part of their experience in understanding genocide and reconciliation.
Delight Cajo and students in the Uganda Studies Program learn a Rwandan dance as part of their experience in understanding genocide and reconciliation.

Bad as the genocide was, not all the Hutu participated. An estimated 1.5 million out of 8 million Hutu did, according to Reverend Antoine Rutayisire, who wrote the book “Faith Under Fire.” This book also shows how God came through with miracles saving lives in this massacre.

As I was pondering Rev. Emmanuel Katongale’s words about whether “the blood of tribalism runs deeper than the waters of baptism,” it dawned on me that God can wipe out the ethnic scars of the Rwandan Anglican Church. In 2019, these people sang and worshiped like they weren’t in Rwanda during that horrific time in 1994. Rhetorically, I wondered, had it happened to me, would I forgive the one who made me an orphan and go ahead to fellowship with him?

An experience in Rwanda with the American-based Uganda Studies Program changed my perceptions in many ways. Through an organization called Christian Action for Reconciliation and Social Assistance (CARSA), I listened to stories of two reconciled perpetrator and victim pairs of the genocide. If you want the truth, listen to both sides. Expressions of pain, anger, jealousy, betrayal, vengeance / revenge, ignorance, hatred, obedience to authority, confusion, psychological transformation, murder, awareness, acknowledgement of mistakes, search for forgiveness, change in behavior, bonding and acceptance of mistakes and history were told.

What stood out the most for me from our visit with CARSA was the psychological transformation that yielded into a peaceful human environment. The psychology behind reconciliation is having a common interest.  Cows represent wealth in Rwanda and Uganda, but also reinforce peace in Rwanda. The perpetrator and victim(s) of the deceased family share a cow as upkeep. This enables them to shed layers of the grudge. If one can forgive the person who killed his or herbiological family, then it is possible to forgive and reconcile with absolutely anyone.

While not all Rwandans have reconciled, it was powerful to learn from those who have.

God did not plan the genocide. It’s by God’s grace that people whose families had been killed got back together and have hope through forgiveness and reconciliation.

One of those reconciled is Reverend Antoine Rutayisire, who recalled when he was five years old that his father was killed during the genocide. As some feel the world turned its back on Rwanda, he doesn’t. He does not blame America, the United Nations and others for not stepping in and stopping the genocide. According to Rev. Rutayisire, Rwanda should take full responsibility for its situation.Today, there is Rwandan peaceful cohabitation in which all residents are called Rwandans. In fact, the labels Hutu and Tutsi are forbidden for use of identification in the country.

Advancements over the past two decades include economic growth, health care and infrastructure. Through these, I realized one could always rise up when fallen.

The Rwandan economic growth rate averaged at 7.5% over the decade 2008 to 2018, while per capita growth domestic product (GDP) grew at 5% annually, according to the World Bank.On a local level, I learned through Hope International about a savings program that enables medical insurance for the poorest members of a community. One hospital, in Butaro village, treats cancer at no cost.

As I journeyed through Rwanda back home to Uganda, I saw eucalyptus trees planted on either side of the road, palm trees in the midsection of road and all the slopes of this country’s mountainous terrain with contours. Rwanda has a wave of natural beauty tethered by fresh air and temperate weather. Its culture esteems their inimitably defined long-horned cattle as a sign of wealth.  With gratitude, people dance with their hands up in a U-shape to imitate the cow horns,amalgamating energy for the men (bulls) and grace for the women (cows).

I acknowledged the slogan, “God worked very hard for six days creating the heavens and earth. But on the seventh day, He needed a break, so He picked Rwanda as the place to take a much-needed sleep. God sleeps in Rwanda, then keeps busy at work everywhere else.”

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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at mtbartels@gmail.com.