Editor,
I highly commend the Banque Populaire du Rwanda for donating Rwf 9 million on New Years Eve towards the One Dollar Campaign, an initiative aimed at raising money to build accommodation facilities for about six hundred orphans of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

However, as Jean Paul Kabera, the national coordinator of Student Survivors’ Association (AERG) said in The New Times story, there was still a long way to go considering that only 600 out of 4,000 needy orphans will benefit from this project. What does that mean?

It means that only about ten percent of the genocide orphans will have proper housing. So, while its good that 600 children will benefit from this initiative, I wonder what will happen to the rest of the children.

Will our collective memory, as Rwandans, fail us? Shall we forget them as we move on towards the future? I certainly hope not.

If that happens, it shall be a collective scar on our conscience.

So while we should applaud the efforts of those who planned the One Dollar Campaign, maybe its time that we begun another one.

We shouldn’t rest until each and every one of those orphans has a warm bed to sleep in and a roof over their heads.

Eric Nshuti
Remera