Relief Efforts in Rwanda
From 1984 to 1994, CARE Rwanda implemented a range of development projects, including maternal health care, forestry and water and sanitation activities.
CARE closed our Kigali office from April to July 1994 during the Genocide against the Tutsi, conducting cross-border relief from Uganda to 150,000 displaced people in eastern Rwanda, and from Burundi and Zaire (now DRC) to 120,000 displaced in southwest Rwanda.
After the Genocide against the Tutsi, CARE’s attention turned to emergency relief, providing over a million people with shelter, food, water, seeds and tools. CARE built a significant reconstruction, rehabilitation and development program, including health and education, HIV prevention, water systems, agriculture and sustainable land use, and improving the incomes and status of vulnerable and marginalized groups, particularly women and children. In all our work, we encourage good governance and aim to strengthen civil society.
In 2017, CARE launched a new Rwanda program strategy, identifying women and girls aged 10-59 years (in categories 1 and 2 of Rwanda’s Ubudehe poverty ranking) as the target group where CARE can have the most impact. Development programming is complemented by emergency programming addressing the needs of disaster-affected populations, particularly refugees.
Such an approach builds on our strengths in Rwanda as:
- One of the few international NGOs leading in gender justice;
- Developer of transformational intervention models;
- Convener of a committed and capable civil society;
- Collaborator with alliances, social movements, government, private sector and civil society.
CARE International currently works in 24 of Rwanda’s 30 districts.