The Ntarama Community Centre

Network 4 Africa is working with the respected Rwandan non-governmental organisations, SURF (the genocide survivors’ fund) and IBUKA to create a community centre with education and health facilities to serve a population of 3,000 genocide orphans and widows. Ntarama is a 45 minute drive south of the capital, Kigali, in a deprived area of rural Rwanda.

The Ntarama Community Centre will have a clinic with doctors, nurses and psychotherapists. Currently there are no health facilities within a 5 mile walk of the area. Malaria and opportunistic infections take a massive toll on families, killing infants and limiting the productivity of adults. It is also essential that women have access to sexual and reproductive health and the knowledge to plan their families.

The centre will have a hall for meetings and events, and it will be available for rent for conferences and weddings. The centre will also have four classrooms with part-time teachers offering training in literacy, health, vocational subjects, computer skills, micro-finance, and sexual and reproductive health, including HIV-AIDS mitigation. There will also be classes in gender rights and the importance of participation in civic society.

After a generous donation of computers, we hope the centre may establish an Internet café in due course, providing local people with a link to the outside world, as well as raising revenues for the centre. Solar panels will generate electricity, thereby providing a space where people can work and learn after dark.

The centre will cost approximately GBP 200,000 ($400,000) to build and equip, and a further GBP 60,000 ($120,000) a year to pay salaries of doctors, nurses, teachers, psychotherapists and a facilities manager. Included in the annual budget are the costs of medical tests and some supplies for the centre.

Network for Africa is looking for people to sponsor doctors, nurses, psychotherapists or teachers. Sponsors will receive information about and from the professional they are sponsoring, and a regular update on progress at the Ntarama Community Centre.

Supporters are urged to visit Rwanda. We are arranging special trips for mother and daughter teams, (link to ‘mothers and daughters’ page), and we have the guiding and organising services of animal biologist and African travel guide Bill Given.