Ahore_Hearts for children foundation.

MISSION STATEMENT

A NURTURED CHILD, A SECURED FUTURE

We strive to prevent and break the cycle of incarceration, Refugee ism, Poverty, and any other type of hazards that would prevent neglected, abandoned and unprivileged children from getting love, proper care, development and holistic education. We achieve this by introducing them to educational services unavailable to them without outside assistance. This way, these children become mentally, physically and emotionally healthy and turn into productive citizens who will lead the country to faster growth in the future

VISION

Ensure that every child we can reach is educated and protected from any abuse or harm.

OUR VALUES

1. Love

2. Compassion

3. Humanity

Mrs. Alice Uwinema is the Founder of Ahore _Hearts for Children.

Apart from being the founder of the organisation,  she serves it in various ways. She initiates, organizes and take part in different activities that are carried out in the organisation. With the fact that the organisation is still considered to be a startup , its Mrs Alice role to secure the funds whenever the organisation  has organised an event or activity. She is also the key person that whoever wants to learn about the organisation gets in touch to.

Our Team Lead is so enthusiastic and ready to tirelessly serve these forgotten children and commit their lives to the cause.

We are a well-trained and dedicated team of individuals that  have worked in different children related sectors and are devoted to support children’s wellbeing. We intend to be  personally reaching these children and offer the services in different areas and sites.

Having other responsibilities in the organization would not be a barrier to support the LEAP team at all, as this is part of our job and  what we have always been looking for. A team that would support us and enable our organization's  initiative operate and grow.

Providing free child care and educational services to toddlers residing with their Mothers in prisons. 

Breaking the circle of Incarceration in Toddlers living with their Mothers in Prisons.  

Children residing in prisons with their parents as well as those of imprisoned parents in general, are often described as the forgotten victims of imprisonment. When a mother or father goes to prison, their children are affected, usually adversely. Yet these effects are rarely considered in criminal justice processes.

Almost if not every country has a law that contains provisions related to prisoners who have minor children. Many countries including Rwanda allow imprisoned mothers to keep their children younger than four years old with them in prison. To a certain/lesser extent the prison provides child care services and facilities to these children but still the situation is not ideal.

These results in both their Physical as well as psychological development being affected negatively, while these ages are very crucial for an individual’s whole life development, due to the environment with unhealthy experiences they live in. 

In Prisons many of their rights are violated. The most violated rights are: right to a standard of living adequately, (Article 27: The child's right to a standard of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development, Right to leisure and rest Article 31: The child's right to rest, leisure and recreational activities.) and right to an adequate education (Article 28: The child's right to education, Article 29: The goals to which a child's education should be directed, and the right of individual adults to establish and direct educational institutions.)

Ahore intent is shown in its objects that are as follow :

• Bringing out joy, and happiness from which these children are deprived with the fact that they are detained with their Parents.

• Strengthening and helping them have access to early year’s education

• Guide and help these children get ready for the society to be integrated in soon.

• Follow up to ensure the wellbeing after being separated from their primary caretakers. 

• Keeping hope in a very dismal world these children live in

This will be done through the set up of Reading corners and playgrounds in different women  correctional facilities and prisons accross the country where these toddlers will be involved in fun and educational activities such as Reading for them stories, free plays,..

Our program is designed for Toddlers residing with their Mothers in Prisons and correctional facilities.

Foundational Research.

According to Rwanda Correctional Services officials, over 130 kids live with their mothers in only one of the four prisons that accommodate women in Rwanda . These children ended up into prison due to two circumstances. Female prisoners who either get sentenced while pregnant or when their children are under three years. For this reason, they have rights to live with their mothers to benefit from breastfeeding them and the maternal care which are of paramount importance for the harmonious development of the child but still the situation is not ideal.

 Ms. Jeanne Chantal Ujeneza one of the senior leaders in Women correctional facilities in Rwanda once stated that , children living in prisons   have rights as any other children and requested all partners to help them enjoy those rights. “These kids are not able to join or have all the rights they deserve like those living outside. For that, the government requests parliamentarians, teachers or any other important persons to never ignore them but rather partner with the government to make sure that they are taken care of while their mothers are completing their sentence

Ahore strongly believes that its everyone’s responsibilities to do what is in their power and protect these kids rights. For this we have no doubt that our initiative would be beneficial to these innocent children.

Our Organization looking for  support from expert researchers who will advise us on how we can  build and strengthen our approach to be able to reach these children.

We believe that once helped to make a report that details the strategies, resources and  tools that inform and clearly explains our approach to this  educational  solution, the government would allow us to reach these children.

We have realized that our  idea and good intentions are greatly appreciated but this  isn’t enough for us to be allowed to implement it.

The Three main research Questions we would like to be helped answer are the following:

1. How would we convince our government that as much as we are not yet a big organization but our good will would make the initiative have a great impact on these children?

2. How would we make our initiative's solution  sustainable?

The Foundational  research we carried out on our own, showed us that there is a great  need for more partners in our country's prisons that accommodate women to help in caring for these children. However, we feel like the government doesn't give us the green light due to the fact that they are not sure if our initiative would be sustainable.

We believe that doing if we be able to carry out a kind of an advanced assessment ( formative) would probably prove to them that we are able to ready to do what it takes to help these children.   

One way our organization would put the outputs into action is by them to the Government to prove that this solution would impact the children's lives

The second way the outputs would be put into action is by helping our organization evaluate it's initiative plan sustainability. As much as we believe that the program would impact the children, but it would be of no use if it's sustainability is questionable. 

Having LEAP outputs would shade some light to both us and the government and probably help us review and refine our initial plan. 

The first short term goal of our organization is to get started (starting to operate) formally.

The next one is Increasing exposure and awareness. So far, our organization’s source of income as well its survival is its volunteers’ donations and contributions.  One of our short goals is Increasing exposure and awareness for us to be able to have a strong team that once we get started, we can be able to operate well.

Being able to at least serve Children in one of the four prisons in our country for a period of twelve months.  

Locating funds is both our short- and long-term goals is locating funds sources and partners so that the organization can be able to survive but also not continue to depend on its volunteers’ donations only.

Reaching all children in all prisons that accommodate woman in the whole of Rwanda is another long-term goal of our organizations.