Our core focus is providing children with disabilities in Rwanda a high quality education. This includes classroom activities at our two sites, rehabilitation services, nutritious meals, and transportation. In addition, we are also passionate about advocating for children with disabilities in the broader community.

Heroes School and Heroes Inclusive Centre

Immediately after the creation of our non-profit in 2014, we began working very hard to make Heroes School a reality. After securing a building to rent in the Gikondo neighbourhood of Kigali, we opened our doors for students in 2015. During our first school year, we relied on parents to contribute to the cost of transportation and school fees, and 7 students were enrolled. The following year we obtained independent sponsorships for children from lower-income family. This has allowed us to steadily increase our enrolment to our current class of 37 students.

While our original building allowed us to get started, we very quickly outgrew it. In 2022, with the help of very generous donors, we were able to buy a plot of land and build a second location for Heroes in the neighborhood of Gasabo. Our long-term dream was to have our own purpose-built facility for children with disabilities that also had enough space to accommodate more children. Given that we now have children with disabilities learning alongside those without, we named this new facility the Heroes Inclusive Center. We opened our doors to our first 28 students this year. This is only the beginning for us, as our new facility can accommodate up to 300 students.

In our facilities we offer children with disabilities the highest quality of education and the opportunity to reach their full potential. While children with disabilities obviously have special needs for their education, we also feel that isolating them from other children is not beneficial as such an environment does not exist in the real world. Outside of school, children with disabilities live with their brothers, sisters, and friends who do not have disabilities. We also feel that having separate schools reinforces the distinction between those with and without disabilities, and misses an opportunity to teach other children about disabilities. Heroes School and Heroes Inclusive Centre provide both parallel and joint classes for children with disabilities and without. This inclusive model provides the opportunity for children with disabilities to join their peers without disabilities, on either on a part-time or full time basis.

No child with a disability is the same. This uniqueness has led us to develop individualized education plans for every child at Heroes. These plans outline the educational goals, special education services, and any special help and support that is required for each student. Our qualified staff ensure that these plans address each child’s individual learning issues and include specific educational goals.

Rehabilitation Services

As we have expanded and grown, Heroes has broadened to provide other services beyond education. While our rehabilitation services began on a volunteer basis, we now have a physiotherapist and and occupational therapist on staff to address the complex needs of our students. Our goal is to hire a speech-language pathologist to our team on a permanent basis. However, to date this has proven difficult as there is no local training program for these professionals. Therefore, we rely on those who come to volunteer with us. Our entire rehabilitation team, both staff and volunteer, collaborate with teachers and develop plans that help our students to reach their full potential.

Meal Program

In the past, we observed that many of our students, especially from poor families, were coming to school hungry. As a result, we often saw an increased level of absenteeism and school drop-out among these children, even in those who had sponsorship to cover their school fees. In 2017, we successfully raised funds to purchase kitchen equipment to setup our food program, which now provides nutritious snacks and meals to our students every day. However, with our larger student population and the massive increase in food prices in 2022, this remains a challenge for us. It is our goal to secure additional funding to support this vital program, as it is impossible to expect our students to learn and develop if they are hungry.

Transportation

For many of our students, transportation to Heroes school remains a difficulty. When we opened in 2015 we initially paid for taxis to drive our students. Not only was this expensive, but we found that many drivers refused to transport children with disabilities. We then hired a car and driver. However, as our student population expanded, we quickly outgrew this solution. In 2016, we received donor funds to purchase a school van with 18 seats. This van served us very well for many years, however, now that we have expanded to a student population of 65 students over two different locations in 2022, transportation remains an enormous challenge for us. It is our hope to raise funds for a large bus that is capable of transporting all of our students, removing any barriers to our student’s access to education and rehabilitation services.

Home Visits

During the school year we conduct home visits for our students, to provide support to their parents, and provide education on how to carry over their treatment and learning at home. We also perform home visits within the community to assess, provide education, support, and referrals for known cases of children with disabilities. Travelling to different communities also promotes disability awareness in neighborhoods, and helps to dispel myths about disabilities.

Community Education

Alongside our work with children with disabilities, we are also seeking to increase the awareness and acceptance of disabilities within Rwanda. We have engaged in major events in Kigali to enhance awareness of disabilities, including participating in a marches to raise awareness of World Cerebral Palsy Day and participating in the monthly “car free day” sport for all event.