Project

Rwanda: Teens Reaching Across a Divide

Several Vermont high school students traveled to Rwanda in December 2006 to meet with teenagers orphaned by AIDS. The six students and adults from two schools filmed, photographed and interviewed Rwandan teenagers participating in a program aimed at helping them become financially independent.

The program, based in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, was launched this summer by Children Affected by HIV/AIDS (CHABHA) a Vermont-based nonprofit using money raised by the American teenagers. It provides job skills training for orphaned teenagers who haven't been able to attend high school. It also educates them about AIDS prevention.

Some 210,000 children now living in Rwanda have been orphaned by AIDS, according to the United Nations. Reporter Sonia Scherr accompanied the school group to Rwanda, chronicling the interaction between the American and Rwandan teenagers as they met peers whose lives, at least outwardly, were vastly different from their own.

February 28, 2007 | Pulitzer Center

Students in Action

Three Vermont high school students spent part of their 11-day trip to Rwanda visiting students in Project Independence, which provides job skills training for Rwandan young people orphaned by AIDS. On one day, the Vermont students' first stop was a garage in the capital of Kigali where Rwandan students were working on vehicles as part of a three-month internship in auto repair. Then the group watched students studying hospitality learn about food preparation in a class at a hotel restaurant.

February 28, 2007 | PBS Foreign Exchange

American teens, Rwandan truths

A group of Vermont high school students travelled to Rwanda to meet teenagers affected by HIV/AIDS. They share their photos, video, and their own words about their experiences in country

Check here for when and where to watch in your local area.

Produced by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

"Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria" is produced by Azimuth Media

US Videographer: Colin McCullough

February 27, 2007 | Pulitzer Center

Children Affected by HIV/AIDS (CHABHA)

The following text and photographs were provided by Susanna Grannis of CHABHA.

CHABHA supports a total of nine projects, four of these are in Rwanda. CHABHA provides the sole support for these Rwanda projects.

February 25, 2007 | Valley News

"What Do I Have? What Can I Offer Them? Cashews

By Cynthia Perry, chaperone and Operation Day's Work director

Although we stayed mostly in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, a two-day excursion to Volcanoes National Park in northwest Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas gave us a searing glimpse of rural poverty in Rwanda. Below is an excerpt from a journal entry written by Thetford Academy teacher Cindy Perry, who coordinates Operation Day's Work in the United States. The excerpt begins as we returned to our Land Cruiser after hiking into the jungle to see the gorillas.