Author: FoRR

2023 Team in Rwanda

The team of RDOs in Rwanda is expanding. We are now up to 18 RDOs working in 17 Districts

If you or your club want to get involved either by fundraising or by donating kit then get in touch with us at info@friendsofrwandanrugby.org.uk

2023 RDO Team

Our ever expanding team of Rugby Development Officers

We are delighted to be welcoming four more RDOs to the FoRR family. We now have 18 RDOs working throughout Rwanda. Great to see them looking so smart in their Rhino donated kit.

Players’ Tour

For the first time ever we ran ‘back to back’ tours to Rwanda. Our Rugby Foundations tour was in May/early June and we worked with primary school children in Rwamagana.

The second group of volunteers arrived 5 days later. A group of 23 players, coaches, referees and trustees had a very busy 8 days. Read all about it in our second special edition newsletter!

FoRR-Newsletter-Special-Edition-Volunteer-Players-Coaches-Tour-June-2022

2021 Newsletter

Although schools reopened in Rwanda in 2021, team sports were not allowed so it has not been possible for our RDOs to coach in schools.

In May there was some relaxation of the rules for those schools with facilities within the school grounds.

Both the RDOs and the children were delighted to be able to take part in some organised physical activity even though the passing of the ball was not allowed in some schools!

In these difficult times we are delighted to announce that we have received sponsorship for an RDO from a welsh charity, Heb Ffin. Many thanks to them.

Check out our latest newsletter:

FoRR-Newsletter-Issue-7-Jan-Jun-2021

Schools reopen in Rwanda

In November 2020 schools in Rwanda opened up for the first time since March when they had all been closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Our RDOs are still unable to run coaching sessions as the schools are currently not open to outside agencies and organised sporting events but we are hopeful that we will be able to restart our coaching programme soon.

All secondary schools have opened and primary schools are opening in a phased way. Currently only the upper primary classes are open (P5 and P6) and the plan is that in January the younger children will also start back to school.

It has been a tough few months and we were happy that as a result of our separate fundraiser “Bringing back the smiles” we raised over £1500 which helped over 120 families in 12 districts across Rwanda. It was also good for our RDOs to be doing something productive in their communities and helping their rugby families.

The RDOs have also been busy working remotely as a team to produce a handbook written by RDOs for RDOs. We are confident this will be a very useful resource for sharing good practice and especially for the new RDOs we are hoping to employ in 2021.

It has been difficult to produce a newsletter in the past few months but Issue 6 is a compilation for the past 8 months.

FoRR-Newsletter-Issue-6-April-November-2020

Thank you for helping us to bring back the smiles

Donatien, RDO for Rusizi district, distributes food to some of the vulnerable families thanks to the money raised by the ‘Bringing Back the Smiles’ fundraiser

In mid March Rwanda reported its first case of Covid19 and the country went into immediate lockdown. All schools were closed and people were told to stay home.

Our RDOs have been unable to coach either at schools or with their community groups and clubs.

As many Rwandans live on a daily wage – the money they make doing a small job today is spent on food tomorrow – the lockdown has caused serious problems with people facing hunger.

We have set up a separate fundraiser to help

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/raising-money-to-bring-back-the-smiles

We are raising money that our RDOs are using to buy food for the most vulnerable children and their families within the rugby community. Within the first few days we raised £800 which was sent straight out to Kamanda our programme manager who did a great job of coordinating the aid. Each RDO selected 5 families that were in most need. As well as our RDOs we also allocated some funding for two groups of street kids (in Kigali and Huye) and also three voluntary RDOs who teach rugby in other parts of Rwanda.

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Laurien, RDO in Muhanga district distributes sacks of maize flour and beans

The £800 we have sent has supported 74 families plus the street kids groups. The RDOs bought the food and distributed to the children and their parents. They were careful to select food that was cheap and long lasting. Maize flour and dried beans are cheap, filling and non perishable. 1 kg of maize flour ( 50p) will make enough ugali for three people.

Thank you so much to all those who donated. We are continuing to raise money and hope to send another donation next week. Our RDOs have been so happy to be involved in helping their communities and it is a great way of sharing the ethos and community spirit of rugby.

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Joseph, RDO for Ruhango district, hands over a large sack of maize flour
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Jean de Dieu IBARINDE hands over beans and maize flour to selected families in the rugby community in Nyamagabe District
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Frederic, RDO from Nyamasheke district with one of his young rugby players
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Martin, vet by profession, gives his time freely to coach rugby in Kayonza district and has also helped with the Bringing back the smiles project to help 5 vulnerable families.
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Programme manager and Rugby Federation president, Kamanda, hands over maize flour to Alpha Junior rugby club in Kagugu, Kigali
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Evariste, a voluntary rugby coach with families in Rwamagana district
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Assinapold, RDO for Burera District, with children from the five selected families
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Street kids in Huye receive their food from Jean Claude.
Jean de Dieu HAKIZIMANA RDO, for Gasabo District, with families from his rugby community

Rhino Grass roots award

Friends of Rwandan Rugby were delighted to be nominated for the Rhino Grass Roots Rugby Award.

FoRR were runners up to Khelo Rugby who do great work in India but it is fantastic to have the work done by our charity in developing rugby in Rwanda recognised.

Big thanks to Rhino who have been such an important supporter over the years

You can find out more about the award here https://rhino.direct/blogs/the-locker-room-blog/khelo-rugby-wins-rhino-grassroots-award-2019

Tour news

Our very first Players’/coaches’ tour to Rwanda took place from October 30- Nov 7th 2019.

When we heard that the Rwandan Silverbacks were going to be playing their first ever Rugby World Cup qualifier match for the 2023 RWC against Ivory Coast in November 2019, we decided it would be a great opportunity for FoRR to send some experts out to help with the training.

We joined the team’s national coach, Claude Ezoua, who has great experience of the Ivory Coast as he is from there and was their coach for the World Cup in 1995.

We were delighted that despite having a very short amount of time to organise the trip we had an excellent group of coaches/players from Wales, England, Scotland, South Africa and France. The tour was led by our trustees Matt Phillips, Mike Jones and Mary Watkins.

Our team and coaching shirts were sponsored by Beddow Partnership

We took 30 large bags of kit with us (around 600kg) thanks to the generous baggage allowance from RwandAir. All of the kit was donated from local rugby clubs, Connect to Africa and SOSKitAid.

Read our newsletter below to see how the week went. We were also delighted to feature in ITV’s footage about the RWC.

FoRR-Newsletter-Players-tour-Nov-2019-Special-Edition

Our volunteers’ trip to Rwanda as featured on ITV