Focus: One dollar campaign: A ‘knight in shining armour to rescue our homeless orphans’

As a way of rallying support for the groups of people who were made vulnerable by the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Rwandans in the Diaspora through the Ministry of Foreign affairs initiated the ‘One Dollar Campaign’. Though it was primarily formed to rally support from the Diaspora, the campaign has spread reaching out even to the different institutions and individuals within the boundaries of Rwanda. From way back, philanthropists both within the country and those from outside countries have been supporting groups of people who were made vulnerable by the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi but this has been done without proper coordination since the support has been in most cases done to individual orphans or widows as induced by the givers compassion. Because of this, the support has not been impacting a lot and has lacked the touch of sustainability due to the absence of a clear-cut strategy and criteria. Something like the one dollar campaign comes to fill the missing link because the organizers have well defined mobilization strategies, goals and objectives viewed from the needs of the beneficiaries. To ensure beneficiary involvement and transparency, all the stakeholders have been involved, for instance CNLG, Ibuka and the association for genocide survivors in universities have been involved from the onset and are part of every step that one dollar campaign takes. The president of the Rwanda Diaspora Global Network Gustave Karara in a n interview with the Sunday Times revealed that this idea started in one of their retreats which was organized in December 2008. “We felt that there was something big we can do to the plight of Rwandan Vulnerable people but we could not single out what, and that’s when CNLG gave us the project of building houses for orphans, which they had not yet implemented due to financial constraints, we analyzed it and saw it was feasible, so we kicked off”, revealed KararaHe added that from then they took up the task of challenging all Rwandans in the Diaspora to do something for the orphans. “We formed a task force made up of people from all the stakeholder parties, and we conduct our meetings every Wednesday to review progress and make financial reports transparently such that we avoid foul play in financial management”, underscored Karara. Since funds collection for the one dollar campaign has trickled down to include nationals as well, the local leaders responsible for collecting funds from people and those collecting from institutions have been told to inform people the amount collected and the progress at every stage, such that they transparency can prevail. During an interview with Robert Masozera the Director General in charge of Diaspora in the Ministry of Foreign affairs, he revealed that the nationals through various institutions like the Ministries and the private sector have started contributing money to the one dollar campaign and that signs are many that this project will be a huge success. He also revealed that the progress so far is commendable “We very happy with the progress and we are optimistic that we shall make it, given the government backing we have received” The housing project for orphans as undertaken by the one dollar campaign is going to be a four blocks complex with facilities to facilitate income generating projects and capacity building training centers since beneficiary sustainability is one aspect that is considered. The whole project is budgeted at Rwf 1.5 billion and this is the money that is being collected by this undertaking. When this project is complete, a huge contribution will have been made to the plight of the orphans who don’t have where to go when it comes to holiday time, where some of them have faked sicknesses such that they can be taken to hospital for a change of environment since they have no homes to go to. Ends