Peace Zawadi Niyonkuru is a young woman who completed her education in the sixth year of secondary school but stopped studying after becoming pregnant unexpectedly, feeling that life had let her down.
After she stopped attending school and her parents did not accept her, they sent her to her aunt in Burundi, but she also did not accept her well, forcing her to return to Rwanda.
Later, she met a man named Gasore Serge who founded an organization aimed at helping people in difficult life situations by providing them with jobs and support. She was selected as one of the students to continue her studies.
Peace Zawadi Niyonkuru says, “God helped me meet the founder of this organization, which is giving chances to girls who had children at home. I also decided to try my luck. He showed me that after giving birth at home, life continues.”
Gasore Serge Foundation is an organization located in the Ntarama sector of Bugesera district. It has transformed the lives of many Rwandans, especially young children from disadvantaged families.
Established in 2013, it initially catered to orphaned children. These institutions in Rwanda have changed their operations, but their aim is to focus on a child from disadvantaged families, offering them education, guidance, food, and more.
They have started different programs, including a school called Rwanda Children Christian School that offers nursery, primary, and first-year secondary education, incorporating vocational skills and foundational support for girls who gave birth at home.
This program for educating girls who gave birth at home began in 2017. They were taught tailoring in the local language. After a year of study, they were given sewing machines and started a life that allowed them to support themselves and their children.
This is the program that Peace Zawadi Niyonkuru began her studies in the first cycle of this year, where she says that the time she spent studying pulled her out of the darkness she had sunk into when she got pregnant and felt she had no direction in life.
She says, “This will help me prepare for my future, to take my child to a good school, and even for me to live better and not to continue in the darkness as before. I have seen the light. Serge continues to give me hope, showing me that after the life I was in, life continues.”
Zawadi’s newfound hope is shared with Uwamariya Olive, who also gave birth at home when she was young and was helped by Gasore Serge Foundation.
She says, “We came here as girls who gave birth at home after seeing that life had pushed us down, we saw that things were hard, but when we got here things changed. We met others, started laughing together again, after all, once you give birth to a person you think life is over.”
Gasore Serge, the founder of this organization, says their aim is to build the Rwandan family, so that even those who finish their studies continue to be supported.
He says, “Instead of letting them go far from us, we have brought them together so that we can reach them, it has become like a family.”
Gasore says, “Everyone who has come here since we started has a cooperative they are enrolled in, and where it ends, we also find support to continue increasing the help we give them, and then they do different things.”
It’s not only the girls who are helped, but also the cooperatives they are enrolled in give them the chance to find substantial markets to sell clothes, where they are now given the contract to sew uniforms for students at Rwanda Children Christian School.
Every year Gasore Serge Foundation teaches 25 girls who gave birth at home, teaches them tailoring in the local language, and even adds other lessons that help them secure jobs.
Once they complete their studies, each one is given a sewing machine to start a life that supports them and their child.
From those studying in the first cycle of this year, they started also learning on machines of the digital type, in a way that they began to see training in factories making clothes in Kigali City, in a way that after their studies they also have advanced tailoring skills that enable them to sew even in big factories.
Some of these girls, due to the difficult life they lived through, their children are also supported at Rwanda Children Christian School, as a matter of grace.
