Students from Burundi American International Academy (BAIA) gathered in Charity Club provided assistance with rice, beans and soaps to 10 families and 48 children from the Buterere Batwa Community. Each family received 25 kg of rice, 15 kg of beans and about ten soaps. The beneficiaries say they also need plots to grow food to survive on.
Charity Club members and BAIA headmaster distributing food to the Batwa community of Buterere.
About 60 people composed of women, children and men were welcomed by about twenty students in the premises of BAIA in the afternoon of 26 May. The students of that academy played some music and danced with their guests. It was a pleasant atmosphere. Each guest was entitled to a bottle of juice and piece of Sambusa. The children of the Batwa community played different games with their hosts. After a leisure time, the members of Charity Club with the support of some parents, educators and the headmaster proceeded with the distribution of food aid to ten families. Each family received 25 kg of rice, 15 kg of beans and a dozen soaps.
Charity Club was created in March 2017 by fifteen children of Burundi American International Academy (BAIA) to assist vulnerable people. Those children are supported by their parents and BAIA management.
“We decided to form the club because we really worry about disadvantaged people around us. We believe we should help them as we are more privileged than them,” said Ketsia Nduwimana.
She said that the club is still new. “We go step by step. We started to assist ‘Mère de la Providence’ orphanage in Carama, and today, we assist the Batwa community in Buterere area,” says Nduwimana, one of Charity Club initiators.
She says Charity Club intends to organize a big charity event. She invites rich people to contribute.
Nduwimana says Charity Club does not have specific sponsors. It gets support from BAIA students, parents and business operators. She says wealthy people have the responsibility to assist people from poor communities.
Paul Jennings, the headmaster of BAIA, says the school helps the charity club to identify poor communities and the kind of assistance they need.
“They are students who initiated the Charity club; they plan charity events and let us know what they wish to do and we help them to get what they need such as arranging meetings and identifying business people to sponsor them”, says Jennings.
Madebari Godefroid, a member of the Batwa community in Barumanga area and one of the beneficiaries of the food aid provided by Charity Club, welcomes the initiative of the students of BAIA. He, however, calls on benefactors to help them with plots to grow food. “The Chinese said that instead of offering fish to the poor people, one would rather teach them how to fish. We neither have plots of land to cultivate nor capitals to run businesses and there are factories to employ us, “says Madebari.
For him, the food they received will not last long, they will just consume it and will be hungry again, the next day.
“We want to work, prepare our future and not rely on humanitarian assistance,” he says.
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