Please help support New
Horizons Foundation and the local church in Rwanda to IMPACT the lives of
neighborhood children across the country…with the pilot program launch in our
neighborhood and surrounding community in Kigali, Rwanda. We are seeking to raise $45,000 in order to launch this program in March. Donations can be made online - just indicate it is for Rwanda (and not their Romania program). Many blessings, Jennifer
IMPACT (Involvement, Motivation, Participation, Action, Community,
Teens) Program:
“To
develop responsibility, young people need to have responsibility. To learn to
care, they need to perform caring acts.”
Thomas Lickona, Developmental
Psychologist and
Professor of Education at SUNY
Imagine a country
devastated by the loss of one million people in 1994. Imagine being a youth
growing up in post-genocide Rwanda. Imagine trying to rebuild a country from
scratch. Imagine 67% of the population being under the age of 25, but the
majority being unemployed. Imagine the trust issues and suspicion involved in
working with people who still hold bitterness over the deaths of their
families. Now imagine…
A youth movement that truly involves young people in real social
change.
Imagine youth lobbying their city government to successfully shut down
drug laundering businesses in their city. Imagine youth petitioning their mayor
and gaining 1,500 signatures to get speed bumps installed on a busy city
thoroughfare to protect innocent lives.
Imagine youth getting the first ecological outhouse installed in a key
area of a National Park. Imagine youth raising money to buy a milk cow for an
orphanage so it can be more self-sustaining. Now consider that through these
projects youth learn important life skills like project management, problem
solving, teamwork and computer skills.
Can you imagine this next generation of youth becoming change agents,
problem solvers, expressing compassionate competence and entrepreneurial energies
for the public good? If you can
imagine this, then you have just imagined the tangible achievements of IMPACT Clubs, but we need your help to
launch this in Rwanda.
We began this conversation
because we know so many youth in our neighborhood who are without hope and
without the practical skills needed to further their education and earn a
decent living. Seeking a funding partner, Jennifer brought this idea to a very
large-NGO. They are so excited that they are seeking funding to launch it in 30
of their areas of development, impacting close to 1000 youth. Unfortunately,
the two larger communities in which we know youth are not in those areas of
development. We hope to see both happen. We are in conversation with the
Pentecostal church in these two communities to partner with them so that this
program can take root among youth we know personally. A Rwandan pastor and
friend of ours has been spearheading this partnership. The trainers are ready
to come. Yet in order to launch this program and impact 275 youth in our local
community, we are seeking to raise an
initial $43,500 to launch this program in 11 neighborhoods and impact 275
youth. That is $13/month or
$160/year per young person and the tangible projects they create will impact
their entire community.
We don’t
believe in reinventing the wheel. If something is proven and tested, then let’s
see it work in areas where the need is greatest. This is our fourth year in
Rwanda. We have built many friendships with the youth in our village, but we have
to ask what will be sustaining when we are not here? Many of these young men
and women are the “sandwich generation.” They have been lost under the
educational transition from French to English and by rapid rebuilding of the
educational system that will greatly benefit today’s 3-5 year olds, but not the
12-18 year olds. Over 40% of those under 25 are unemployed and less than 20%
are finishing secondary school. We see a huge desire in them to improve their
lot in life and yet the opportunities just aren’t there. We desire to see these
innovative and impactful clubs started throughout Rwanda, in partnership with
the local church. IMPACT,
a model developed on the ground in Romania by my friends, Dana and Brandi
Bates, is now not only the largest youth community service movement in Romania,
but is recognized globally as a best practice by international youth experts
The IMPACT Program
is a powerful vehicle of holistic social change; it is based on a field-tested
curriculum and has four broad learning pillars. The pillars come with a corresponding set of curricula: active
citizenship, employability, social entrepreneurship and leadership. Youth come to know firsthand that they
can make a difference and be part of positive change. The IMPACT model
empowers youth to learn how to envision social change, brainstorm together and
then write and implement strategic
community service projects.
Projects that not only transform youth and their communities, but give
them concrete employable skills. The development of moral capacity in the youth
served by IMPACT is singularly
preeminent, interwoven through the 4 pillars above. Behind all of this are over 100 field-tested education
modules, curricula developed and fine-tuned both on the ground and in
consultation with global experts since 2002.
We
already have the trainers, the facilitators and the youth eager to participate.
What we need is the funding. World Vision has expressed significant interest in
taking this country-wide and has requested three years of funding from its
headquarters, but this initial launch will need to be self-funded.
We look forward to partnering with you to impact the youth in
our neighborhood and throughout Rwanda.
Please consider investing in a portion of the following:
Training Costs $15,000
(covers translation/airfare/honorarium/meals and lodging for ten days for
trainers)
Administrative/Salaries $23,000
(provides jobs for 12 people – 11 local facilitators and 1 regional
coordinator)
Grants for Community Project
Grants $5,500 (students can apply for a
grant to accomplish their community project)
The New Horizons Foundation was founded by Dana and
Brandi Bates in 2000, to promote top quality experiential education models that
advance life skills among youth as a means for sustainable development. Experiential education is about
learning by doing, learning through a problem solving approach to
education. In addition to the IMPACT program, since 2000 NHF has
operated the first and only adventure camp in Romania, VIATA. VIATA utilizes the non-formal
educational methodology of adventure education and service learning to develop
youth. VIATA has served over 5000 youth in the 10 years it has
operated. NHF recently celebrated
10 years of sustainable development work in Romania; there currently are over
20 fulltime Romanian staff and 3 American volunteers working with the
Foundation in various capacities, as well as one staff member stateside. There is much more information on the
programs, awards and focus of New Horizons on the website: www.new-horizons.ro.
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