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Youth support
We work in the street to identify children at risk, accompany them through socio-educational reintegration and favour their return to family — close or extended.
Huye District · Southern Province · Rwanda
Every child deserves a family, a school, a future.
Since 1997, OPDE Rwanda has walked alongside street children and the most vulnerable families of Huye District — from the street back to the family, and from the family toward lasting self-reliance.
1,400 +
children and young adults supported since 1997
50 +
homes built and rehabilitated for host families
400
women supported in cooperatives every year
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rural sectors: Mbazi, Ngoma and Mukura
1997
Founded in Butare by Father Bruno Nkonji
Who we are
A humanitarian work rooted in the hills of Huye
The Œuvre Humanitaire pour la Protection et le Développement de l’Enfant en Difficulté — OPDE Rwanda — is a non-governmental organisation serving the most deprived populations of Huye District, in Rwanda’s Southern Province.
For more than twenty years we have worked with children living on the street. Some are orphans; many come from families so poor that the street seems the better chance. We accompany each child through reintegration into school and, above all, back into their family.
Since 2019 we have worked further upstream — preventing the street-children phenomenon through the economic empowerment of women and vocational training for out-of-school youth.
What we do
Four programmes, one continuous path
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Vocational training centre
Each year our centre welcomes around a hundred young women and men across three sections: masonry, welding and hospitality.
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Women's empowerment
With our partner L'AMIE Canada, 100 of the most vulnerable women each year are grouped into cooperatives and receive training and financial support.
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Farming and livestock
Farming and livestock serve as income-generating activities and familiarise our beneficiaries with running an enterprise of their own.
Extreme poverty here has a gender. Almost every family we visited was headed by a woman alone — widowed, a single mother, or abandoned.
Partners
They make this work possible
Government of Rwanda
L'AMIE Canada
Média Espoir France
AIMER
CCF Allemagne
Firelight Foundation
PAM
UNICEF
Would you like to know more?
Write to our team — we will take your request in hand and reply as soon as we can.
Contact us