KIGALI - Members of the Rwandan Diaspora have announced plans to help in the construction of 504 houses in Bugesera district as a contribution to a government campaign to eliminate grass-thatched houses in the country.

This was announced Tuesday after members of the Diaspora toured rural communities in the district at the end of the just concluded fourth Diaspora Global Convention in Kigali.

"We don’t have a concept plan for it yet but, in the course of this week, we will meet with Bugesera officials and work on it. We have agreed with them to sign a partnership on all other poverty alleviation initiatives and, we will bring in investors from abroad,” Gustave Karara, the head of the Rwanda Diaspora Global Network (RDGN) told The New Times on phone yesterday.

The delegation said it would build the houses in Rilima sector, Bugesera district.

Former Miss France 2000, Sonia Rolland, born to a Rwandan mother, recently promised to be the country’s ambassador and also announced plans to set up a vocational school for orphans of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Rolland said her charity organization ‘Maisha Africa’ will look for sponsors in France to bankroll the project.

Rolland’s organization has already constructed 12 houses for orphans of the Genocide in Kimironko.  She has also flown in a medical team to study the country’s health situation and see how they can help as well as train Rwandan surgeons.

On Monday, RDGN also officially handed over the One Dollar Campaign money and files to the project beneficiaries – the Association of Student Survivors of the Genocide (AERG), after a eight-month fundraising campaign that managed to raise over Rwf 1 billion.

Ends