I have heard from Women for Women International and learn that I have been matched with a 34 year old woman named Clarisse Niyonsaba, who lives in Rwanda.
I don't have a lot of information about Clarisse yet. The package says that I will receive more information when she attends her first class. But I do know that she is married and raising five children. I do not know if these are all her children, since the information I received says that "many women adopt as many as 6 orphaned children, treating every child like her own."
Apparently this is a sponsorship which lasts one year. Clarisse will join a group of 25 women who will become her support network as they "go through an intensive and life-changing training."
The letter goes on to state that "Clarisse will learn about women's rights, allowing her to take greater control over the decisions that govern her life and that of her children; she will learn technical and business skills that will allow her to sustain an income; she will receive direct cash assistance and emotional suppolrt, and on graduating (in September of 2011) she will be given access to jobs or tools to start a business."
I think my first choice of match was in Congo, because of my friends from Congo, but I have felt such irrational guilt about Rwanda since seeing Hotel Rwanda and learning more about the genocide in 1994, so I'm more than happy with a match with Clarisse. More than 800,000 people were murdered and 2 million were displaced in Rwanda.
Up to 500,000 women and girls were raped and tortured.
After the genocide Rwanda's population was 70% female.
Women for Women provides job skills training, health eduction and rights awareness classes to help these women succeed and give themselves and their families a hope for a better future.
I hope to get to know Clarisse better over the coming year and I hope that this sponsorship may help a little toward making her life a little better. It seems so little to do, but a little is more than nothing.
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*Dear Clarisse
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