Join our New Year’s resolution: change lives with literacy

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If one of your New Year’s resolutions was giving back and making a difference in the world, we can help.

Grace Rwanda is days away from an important move to establish an in-country office in Rwanda. We hope to be even more effective with our literacy and reading programming when we are on the ground and can create deep partnerships with locals and government.

We are on track to create two new youth centre libraries in Rwanda in 2016: first in Kimisagara, then Nyanza. With luck, we may be able to create a third library later in the year.

Of course, more programming takes more funding. So if you are looking at making a meaningful contribution to the world in 2016, visit our new Canada Helps charity page, and see how far your donations can go to provide new libraries for Rwanda this year.

No donation is too small. Remember, just $25 buys 10 primary school-level books, while $50 buys 10 secondary school-level books. Larger donations of $100 will provide 25 children with books, $200 will help 50 children and $400 will allow us to supply reading materials to 100 children and youth.

As always, your donations over $25 are fully tax-deductible. And 100 per cent of your donations go directly to our programs, as our organization is volunteer-run.

Visit Canada Helps to have a look at the good you can do, and help Rwandan youth have a very happy new year.

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

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Happy Holidays from Grace Rwanda

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Dear Grace Rwanda supporter,

Grace Rwanda wishes you a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2016!

Noheli Nziza & Umwaka Mushya Muhire 2016!

We would like to thank you for your personal involvement, your generosity and your support which you have shown in so many ways this past year.

Thanks to your help with our most recent initiative, a 40-foot container for Grace Rwanda was shipped from B.C. on November 27th and is currently on the way to Rwanda. It is packed with more than 16,000 books, 3,000 dictionaries, 600 hygienic recyclable pads for girls, 30 sewing machines, numerous fabrics, over 100 teams soccer jerseys, and other supplies for our projects within Rwanda.

Our sincerest thanks to everyone who helped make this shipment possible. We’d like to acknoweldge all of our individual donors, and our partner organizations, which include Rotary International, District 5050, Rotary World Help Network, Rotary Club of Langley Sunrise, RR Plett Trucking, Lantrax Logistics, Canada Soccer, Days for Girls International, Riverside Sewing Bee Team, Power to Change, Focus on the Family, Mennonite Central Committee, plus many other private and public Schools and universities.

We appreciate your continuous support. Every donation you make will continue to help eradicate illiteracy in Rwanda. Join us in this life-changing initiative.

Please consider visiting our projects in the future to witness what we can accomplish together for the children of Rwanda.

Happy holidays from Grace Rwanda!

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

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Loading up for literacy

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The Grace Rwanda team has been busy this week loading up our shipping container with generous donations from our local community.

The container is getting stocked with books and other supplies and will arrive in Rwanda this winter, ready to stock two more YEGO Youth Centre Libraries in needy communities. With these books, and with the generous donation of a matching grant from our Rotary partners and donations toward shipping costs, we are well on our way to establishing our next two libraries. These are planned for the communities of Kimisagara near the capital and Nyanza in the southern province.

Our dedicated volunteers — many from local Rotary clubs — have been helping load the container at the Rotary Help Warehouse at Riverview in Coquitlam. The container is nearly two-thirds full. We’re almost there!

Our next packing session is being held this coming Saturday Nov. 14. We’d love to see you come out and pitch in!

Among the goods we are shipping to students in need are thousands of books donated by local Rotary clubs and Langley and Abbotsford Schools, including 3,000 dictionaries. We have several computers donated by the Rotary World Help Network that will go to provide internet and computer access in our libraries.

In addition, there are more than 100 team soccer jerseys and sports equipment for youth in our YEGO youth library communities, donated by the Canadian National Women’s Soccer Team. A number of sewing machines and fabrics were donated by the Mennonite Central Committee to help Rwandans earn a living. Also included are some 800 hygienic sanitary pads made by the Riverside Calvary Chapel Sewing Bees group. And some office supplies to help establish our new Grace Rwanda office in Kigali.

All this precious cargo is scheduled to leave Vancouver on Nov. 21 and arrive 60 to 75 days later in Rwanda.

A heartfelt thanks to all our Rotary partners: from Rotary International to Rotary District 5050 and the Rotary Club of Langley Sunrise. Many thanks to individual Rotary volunteers and members of the Riverside Calvary Church who have come out to help us back the container.

Come be a part of loading up for literacy! To learn more about volunteering on Nov. 14 email elizabeth@gracerwanda.org.

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

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Getting Kids Reading in Rwanda

Youth join literacy activities in Kayonza on Sept. 29.

Youth join literacy activities in Kayonza on Sept. 29.

We’re happy to report a great turnout for our Rwanda Reads event at our Kayonza YEGO Youth Centre Library on Sept. 29.

Grace Rwanda sponsored a literacy event in the town and supplied book bags as prizes to encourage young student readers as they participated in literacy activities.

We’re happy to be a part of building literacy capacity in Rwanda and creating a culture of reading!

In other news, two students here at home at UBC have joined Grace Rwanda as interns.

Silvana Romero and Aiman Ragab are motivating their fellow university students to donate books to Grace Rwanda’s upcoming shipment of books to Rwanda, with the goal of stocking two new youth libraries in the country.

The shipment is set to go out later this fall. Romero and Ragab are leading book drives on campus and fundraising for our latest project. We appreciate their enthusiasm and effort! Check out their campaign on Toonies4Change.org in the coming month.

Co-founder Elizabeth Johnson and President Paul Johnson were also in Kelowna recently speaking at the Calvary Chapel. They were met with heartfelt support for their mission and goal of setting up a Grace Rwanda office in Kigali this fall and stocking the new libraries with books.

The deadline is looming, so if you have books to donate or can pledge financial assistance to make this shipment a reality, please contact us at info@gracerwanda.org.

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

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Grace Rwanda at Rwanda Reads this fall

Youth perform a literacy skit at the 2014 Kayonza literacy event.

Youth perform a literacy skit at the 2014 Kayonza event.

 

We’re happy to share the news that Grace Rwanda has again been invited to participate in Rwanda Reads this September.

We’ll be participating a special Literacy Day Expo at our Kayonza YEGO Youth Centre community library on Sept. 29 to mark the end of the month-long national reading festival. The country-wide literacy festival kicked off on Sept. 8 on UNESCO’s International Literacy Day.

The Expo will include interactive stations where youth can read and write and create, as well as book stations and other activities. Last year’s event included two oral storytellers that wowed the crowd. Grace Rwanda also   provided book prizes to help further encourage youth to get involved in a culture of reading.

We’ll report back with pictures from this special event later this fall.

In the meantime, we’d also like to update you on our latest fundraising campaign. Grace Rwanda is actively working to send a shipping container full of books to Rwanda this fall to help stock several additional youth libraries.

Our Rwandan dinner fundraiser raised $3,000 and books are being collected with the help of the Rotary Club of Langley Sunrise. Now a new Langley Rotary Club District grant will help us create two more libraries in the coming year.

We’d like to sincerely thank our partners for their support and vision in making this next phase possible.

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

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Blessed with support for our books for Rwanda campaign

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Thank you to all the supporters who came out to celebrate with us at the Grace Rwanda Dinner and Social hosted by the Riverside Calvary Chapel.

The event was a success, with inspirational speakers and delicious food. We raised more than $3,000 putting us a fifth of the way toward meeting our goal of shipping a container full of books to Rwanda this fall to stock up to 10 YEGO district youth centre community libraries.

The aim is to ship up to 30,000 books, plus more than 2,000 dictionaries supplied by Rotary Clubs, and 50 soccer team jerseys donated to our charity in the past by the Canadian women’s soccer team, which will support youth sports teams at the community centres.

We thank Riverside for their commitment to supporting our cause, and are also thankful for the ongoing support of the Rotary Club of Langley Sunrise and District 5050.

These dedicated supporters of Rwandan literacy have pledged to help collect books, supply dictionaries and assist in loading and transporting the container through the Rotary
World Help Network
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We hope to meet our $15,000 goal and ship the container by the end of September. If you’d like to assist, please consider donating via our secure web site.

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

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