A New Model for Humanitarian Aid
What is Project LIGHT: Rwanda?
A bright opportunity for meaningful change.
Project LIGHT (Leadership, Inspiration, Gobal Healing, Transformation) represents a brand new model of sustainable and solution-based humanitarian aid that aims to holistically and compassionately address the emotional and material needs of orphaned or otherwise disadvantaged young people.
Today, there are more than 210 million children who live as orphans and more than one billion disadvantaged by poverty around the world. To this day, Rwanda continues to have the highest per capita percentage of orphans as a result of the devastation of the 1994 genocide.
In all likelihood, without a smarter style of intervention, these children—our future leaders—will repeat the cycle of neglect and impoverishment and make their future, their past.
Current forms of humanitarian support are missing the mark. They are typically rendered in a singular handout or 'pothole filling' manner, often coupled with religious, business or political agendas—thus they fail, many times, to provide lasting solutions that work.
Resources are drained needlessly. Dependent relationships are created. Problems are perpetuated and the needs and interests of those being served become secondary.
Project LIGHT: Rwanda will be one of the first humanitarian aid projects of its kind that fully invests in the solution, seeks to empower, and delivers a total-care approach—attached only to the pillars of results, service, and compassion.
The Plan and Moving Towards Peace Involvement
The plan then is to create a state-of-the-art holistic healing and resource center located in the capital city of Rwanda, Kigali, where young people seriously affected by the genocide can come to receive leading edge therapeutic trauma care, as well as personal and professional skills training to ensure their economic viability and sufficiency.
It is in addressing both the internal emotional needs, as well as the external material needs that will yield the greatest impact.
Ownership of the center will be 100% turned over to local stakeholders after successfully achieving sustainable sources of revenue. The operations will be handled by local staff and training will be conducted by program participants who enter and complete the Train-the-Trainer program.
Project LIGHT: Rwanda will be the first grassroots-driven resource center run by young adults for young adults.
With the template established, other such centers can then be created in additional areas of the world (including the United States).
Moving Towards Peace has been engaged to closely assist in the launch of Project LIGHT: Rwanda and will be working closely with the founder and Executive Director, Lori Leyden, PhD. to do so. MTP will also be developing a curriculum for trauma care using natural forms of medicine, as well as basic entrepreneurial training.
Why Rwanda?
Rwanda has been selected as the ideal pilot project location due to the many challenges the country faces—which mirror, and in some cases exceed, those faced in other developing and developed countries.
Our Rwandan partners have an ideal mindset for a project of this nature. They are forward looking and whole-heartedly committed to healing for themselves and their country, as well as determined to create a new peace in Rwanda based on the hard lessons learned from the genocide.
In addition, tremendous results from previous programs have already been realized in a relatively short period of time with relatively low amounts of funding. It is safe to say that these results will be multiplied given the widened scope of Project LIGHT: Rwanda.
How You Can Invest in Project LIGHT: Rwanda
Money – donated dollars directly fund program expenses. $43k is needed urgently by July 31, 2010.
Refer – do you know somebody that shares the vision of Project LIGHT: Rwanda? Let them know about it so we can be in touch.
Social – share this page with your social graph (buttons below).
Ideas – Project LIGHT: Rwanda is founded on a partnership model. If you have something to contribute to the program, let it be known.
Resources
Download the official Project LIGHT: Rwanda brochure (high-res PDF)
