"I want to be a pilot,” said one cheerful and sharp-minded Uwase (not real name as she's a victim of defilement) as she stroke through my box braids telling me stories, including how she was having a hard time learning French. 

By this time, I did not know her tragic story, right from tender age. 

Uwase was picked by an old woman after being rejected by her mother at birth and when the woman took her to local authorities, she was allowed to stay with her. All was well until one unfortunate day, when Uwase was defiled.  

"She would cry all the way to her home after spending a joyful day of playing and learning like any other kid,” said Yohani Kayinamura, the founder of the school that later on decided to provide her with a safe haven.

Students learn to use a computer duri IT class at Bright Future Academy, a school based in Byimana Sector in Ruhango District.

Kayinamura is a US-based professor of Chemistry at Daytona State College in Florida, and the founder of what was initially an orphanage but later in 2020 turned into Bright Future Academy, a school based in Byimana Sector in Ruhango District.

The 42-year-old is married to Beatrice Kayinamura and the two have a five-year-old daughter together. The family comes to Rwanda from time to time for different purposes, including supervising the school initiative.

Under a calm environment, away from city noise, the first thing one notices once they make through the gate is spotless environment, spacious premises of dormitories, administration block, kindergarten, primary bloc, and a computer lab.

The facilities are state of the art and you would easily place it anywhere in the poshest neighbourhoods of Kigali.

The school also has a playground for the kids where the fun fueled by childish noises happens during break-time, a basketball court, and a garden. Its perimeter is monitored by a 24-hour CCTV camera system for security purposes.

The entire school is connected to Wi-Fi and children can access the internet. 

Yohani Kayinamura, founder of the school.

Uwase and other children, including former street kids, get to enjoy this facility that provides non-discriminatory quality education. There is no street child nor the privileged one, all are innocent souls provided with academic and social needs.

How the journey started 

While he was still in college, Kayinamura worked as a tutor and managed to save up some money with which he started to support two street children that he had met while he was in Rwanda in 2002.

"My white friend and I were passing through Muhanga town and one boy came to us saying ‘amafaranga, amafaranga’ (money), then he complained to me that the white guy had made me rich and now I am sabotaging his luck,” he narrated.

Bright Future Academy is  based in Byimana Sector in Ruhango District. Olivier Mugwiza

"That’s when it hit me that I can actually help this child. I took him to my mother’s house from where I started supporting him and a year later, I got another one.”

Once he had saved up more, Kayinamura got six more children and built a house to raise them in, because, by this time, they could not be all accommodated at his mother’s house.

"More and more came in…they were all attending school and, later some graduated, few went to universities, others went to vocational training schools,” he said. 

The bigger house built on his family land was meant to foster the increasing number of street kids that he helped until orphanages were progressively phased out in Rwanda as a government policy.

The policy aimed at ensuring all children in the country have a chance of being raised in a family setting.

He, therefore, decided to transform the facility into a school, after successfully placing all the children in foster families from where he continues to support them.

Every day, they are picked up from these homes and dropped to school and also taken back after class. There are two buses dedicated to this endeavor.

But before all that came to pass, Kayinamura as a believer says that the initiative is more of responding to the calling of God upon his life.

How the kids are helped psychologically

First of all, the school is built far from the main road, according to him, to shield children from any distraction that can tempt them back to the streets.

"These are smart children, they have had a unique background that makes their lives complicated, but I have seen that they completely change from who they are today to citizens that can contribute to the development of their country," he said.

Children of Bright Future Academy have lunch at school. Olivier Mugwiza

"We train them to think positively by bringing role models to talk to them, and also explaining to them that God loves them. Honestly, it’s like a miracle, I don’t know how but most of them were completely changed."

Some of them have moved further to support their extended families that had previously rejected them, provide their siblings with school fees, and so on.

Currently, the school receives vulnerable children from local authorities who are then enrolled with a full scholarship and school materials, along with other children from the local community who can afford 40 per cent of the ideal tuition after passing an academic test.

"When we expanded this into a school, we decided to allow local parents and other people who wanted to join, so we have a mixed school that cannot be characterized in any such way. We follow the general curriculum that is set by the Ministry of education," he said.

Up to primary four, the school has more than 180 students with 26 staff. It is expected to expand up to Primary Six in the next two years. Eventually, they will have a secondary section.

Kayinamura explained that each class has two teachers and the teachers are drawn from Rwanda and different countries in the region. According to him, quality is at the centre of what they do at the school.

He said that for each class, they have a quota and cannot enroll more children beyond that number.

"My ultimate goal is to ensure that by the time the children graduate, they are able to compete anywhere in the world.

The teachers are trained to help them socially for behaviour change, but he remarks that the issue remains in their different foster families.

Challenges

He mentioned that the current challenge they are facing is having qualified local teachers who can teach and interact with the children.

Another one is the lack of internet for the kids in foster families which hinders their progress in digital learning.

What can be done

One way to get the kids out of isolated social circles they are trapped in is to put them in a place that provides what attracts them to the streets, that is a good life, food, and shelter but also, to help them grow financially responsible.

"We are just going to break the circle of homelessness, that's what we have been targeting," said Kayinamura.

A lot has been done by the government, but follow up on how they are treated in the foster families is needed, though there are even still many kids in the streets, he added.

A school van that helps children

Kayinamura projects the academy to be an elite school in the future where children won’t have to go abroad to get quality education.         

He said that they want local children to be equipped to solve local problems starting at an early age by connecting textbook knowledge to real-life practices.

Message to diasporas

"Am proud to be Rwandan because wherever you may be, Rwanda has given us dignity and I am proud of being able to contribute the little I can to the development of Rwanda," said Kayinamura.

You can live abroad but first, you are Rwandan, he added. But "I feel like it's a must to do everything that you can wherever you are to contribute to your homeland because there is a reason you were born in that country."

"Personally, I feel like it's a debt I owe to my country."

Children during the recreational exercises at Bright Future Academy