Hope and Homes for Children Rwanda

Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) has been operating in Rwanda since 2002, successfully working on a number of family and community based initiatives.

Since 2010, we have been supporting the Government of Rwanda in the eradication of institutions (orphanages) throughout the country and on the development of a national child protection system that minimises family separation and provides family-based alternatives when necessary.

Over the last ten years, working closely with the Government of Rwanda, HHC-Rwanda has helped build a strong national social workforce, assisted with the closure of 15 orphanages including a center for children with disabilities across the country, with over 1,300 children including children with disabilities reintegrated to families and communities.

HHC-Rwanda has achieved this through the development of a range of community based services including 10 child-focus community centers (including 2 inclusive centers), 228 child protection and development networks and the development of family-based services like foster care for all children and specialist foster care for children with special needs.

In total HHC-Rwanda has successfully worked with over 170,000 children (5,000 children with disabilities) and their families as well as over 200 teen mothers to prevent child abandonment, family separation and placement of children including children with disabilities into orphanages.

Over the years, over 21,000 participants benefited from our training programmes across Rwanda, and were equipped with the knowledge and skills to support the deinstitutionalisation[1] process.

HHC-Rwanda is working in partnership with the Government of Rwanda and other national partners, to ensure all children are safely transitioned into families and communities with access to health, education and jobs.

With the help of funding provided by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, HHC Rwanda pioneered since 2018 the closure of two centers for children with disabilities among which one completely closed and transformed inclusive early childhood development center. This closed project built the evidence on necessity and rights of children and young adults with disabilities to families and inclusive services.

So far, Rwanda has seen a reduction in the number of children living in institutions for non-disabled children by more than 80%. A very recent national disability policy approved in 2021 has included in its four-year strategic plan the reintegration of children with disabilities living in residential centers to families and communities.

HHC-Rwanda is now acknowledged as a regional hub, where by a regional office has been established and started a coordinated regional action, through capitalising on the experiences, achievements and assets of HHC and its network of national partners in the countries of operation (Rwanda, a strategic partnership in Uganda, and a pilot project in South Africa) and in countries of influence (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

[1] The de-institutionalization of children is a policy-driven process of reforming a country’s alternative care system, which primarily aims at decreasing reliance on institutional and residential care, with a complementary increase in the family and community-based care and services, preventing separation of children from their parents by providing adequate support to children, families and communities, and preparing the process of leaving care, ensuring social inclusion for care leavers and a smooth transition towards independent living.