Elevation Project
What does a struggling youth in North America have in common with a child living in poverty in Rwanda? More than you can imagine. While they share deep challenges beyond what many others face, they also share hope and potential to live life to the full. They need support but both have much to give each other, and the rest of the world.
In 2007, Greater Vancouver Youth Unlimited partnered with Rwanda Youth for Christ, combining skills, creativity, resources and dedication. These mutually transformative relationships express themselves through trips, student sponsorship, and women’s projects.
Student Sponsorship
* There are just 3 more students on the program that need to be matched with sponsors in 2013! Please download our Sponsorship Brochure (PDF) or contact our office for more information if you are interested in student sponsorship!
Click here to read a story about how sponsorship impacts the lives of families – both in Rwanda and Canada.
Elevation Project thank you from Charlotte Browning on Vimeo.
Across the globe, education is accepted as a key to a promising future. In Rwanda, however, public education is crippled by a severe lack of resources. As a result, the poorer a child’s background is, the poorer his or her education opportunities—thus locking families into cycles of poverty.
Youth Unlimited has partnered with Kigali Christian School (KCS) and generous Canadians like you to provide life-changing scholarships to the one-third of students at KCS who cannot afford their school fees. KCS offers students an exceptional education, training leaders in all fields to move Rwanda children, families, and their entire country forward. Every student at the school receives a hot lunch, but it is especially important for the sponsored students as this lunch may be the only meal they eat during the day. As well, Rwanda YFC employs a gifted social worker that communicates with the sponsored students and their families in order to work with them through the challenges that they face.
Please download our Sponsorship Brochure (PDF) or contact our office for more information if you are interested in student sponsorship!
Trips
The Elevation Project at its heart is a relationship and relationships work much better when people spend time together! So, every now and then we like to hang out with our Rwandan friends, to work, play, and dream together – bringing Canadians and Rwandans together with the aim of providing opportunities for transformational relationships. Sometimes our Rwandan friends come here to Canada and sometimes we go there!
Every couple of years, we take a larger group to Rwanda to work together as a team with our Rwandan colleagues. These teams are comprised of youth and young adults who not only want to be part of a life changing adventure, but who are committed to continuing to support each other in their respective countries. This includes raising awareness and child sponsorships, supporting the students at the school and the other youth and families that Rwanda YFC works with, as well as participating in special events, presentations and more.
2012 Rwanda Summer trip (short) – Large from Charlotte Browning on Vimeo.
You can also check out our Summer 2012 Trip Blog here.
Our last trip: JB, National Director of Rwanda YFC, was here in Vancouver Oct 31 – Nov 4.
Our next trip: A small group of staff and The Elevation Project partners will be travelling to Rwanda in early May, 2013.
Women’s Project
Click here to read a story of hope and celebration!
For many Rwandan women, their story includes war, rape, HIV, and poverty, but for those we work with, we aim to add one element to the story—hope.
Greater Vancouver Youth Unlimited has joined the team in Rwanda to provide a place to belong and a source of income. We work specifically with disadvantaged women to empower them to lives to the full: spiritually, physically and socially. This occurs in three phases: Crisis Support, Advanced Life Skills Training, and Business Training.
Phase 1 includes peer support, mentoring, advocacy, and basic life skills. Phase 2 includes advanced life skills training, basic job training and a source of income through steady work at Rwanda YFC, plus continued peer support, and mentoring to assist women in breaking their own cycle of poverty. Phase 3 provides advanced business training to women from Phase 2 identified with the capacity and ability to participate in a vocational training school.
Women who participate in the program also have the opportunity to enrol their children on the Sponsorship Program, and work consistently with Rwanda YFC’s social worker to address the needs of the whole family.
