Welcome to the GiveMeaning donation page for the Rwandan Club Kigali-Etoile!
I, Jackie.. Jackie Hall, am raising funds for Club Kigali-Etoile, an orphanage and one of the six Soroptimist International Clubs in Rwanda. Club Kigali-Etoile supports almost 200 orphans, mainly children who lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. They also provide aid to the "child mothers" of Kigali. “Child mothers” are young girls whose parents were taken by war or disease, leaving them to care for their younger brothers and sisters.
Most of us are vaguely familiar with the genocide and atrocities committed by the Hutus against the Tutsis in Rwanda almost 15 years ago. The country is still reeling from the war which left thousands of children orphans. Over a 100 day period, beginning April 6, 1994, an average of 8,000 Rwandans a day were butchered in the fastest rate of mass killing in the twentieth century. In all 800,000 Rwandans were murdered, and the United Nation investigators estimate between 250,000 to 500,000 women were sexually brutalized during the genocide. The genocide left 11% of the country infected by HIV/AIDS. The atrocities also resulted in 15% of the children in Rwanda being orphaned, and 2% of those orphans HIV positive.
On May 24, 2010, I will travel to Rwanda to run in the International Peace Marathon presented by the Soroptimist International Club. This will be the marathon’s fifth year of raising awareness and funds for the women and children of Rwanda, but It will be my very first marathon. Nicknamed "The Land of Thousand Hills," Rwanda will be high, hot and a really hard 26.2 miles to run! But I’m ridiculously excited and grateful for such an amazing opportunity to explore a beautiful country and offer some good fortune to very deserving children.
My goal is to raise $10,000.00 prior to the marathon on behalf of Club Kigali-Etoile. All donations raised through this effort will go towards essential school supplies, textbooks, tuition, and living expenses for the orphans, and allow them to participate in the excitement of the 'Run For Fun' that precedes the marathon.
Please help me invest in the Club Kigali-Etoile orphans’ need for resources to secure their educational success; allowing them to provide for their future families, continue the peace of their country and, hopefully, move to change the condition of their continent.
For more information on the Soroptimist Club go to http://www.soroptimisteurope.org/
For more information about the International Peace Marathon go to http://www.kigalimarathon.com/
If you have any further questions, please email me at jaclyn.hall1@gmail.com