Improved living conditions

Daily living conditions of families have improved: all children attend school and they have medical care free of charge close to their home. With agricultural training, crops increase and food for the family improves. Support for income generating activities means that families are able to afford what they need.

Almost 200 families (about 1500 people) benefit from our education programmes in Rwanda, Uganda, Cambodia and Guatemala.

The work of FH in Gikomero, Rwanda, brought significant changes. For example:

Schooling
In the beginning, only half the children attended school. Today, all of them attend. The drop out level was drastically reduced: from 20% it has dropped to 1%. 16 classrooms were built and 2 schools were equipped with recreation rooms. 25 teachers were trained to teach English.

Sanitation
Today almost 90% of families have latrines (as opposed to 30% before FH arrived). Families were trained in hygiene and disease prevention. The number of children suffering from chronic diarrhoea has dropped.
A health centre was built for the members of the community. Before, they had to walk more than one hour to get to the nearest dispensary.
The level of neonatal mortality (children born alive but not reaching 28 days of life) has dropped from 4% to 0.3%; women go more readily to the hospital to have their babies, following training in this area.

Agriculture:
Animals (goats, cows and rabbits) were given to vulnerable families. With technical support, these families have been able to improve their harvests. Surplus from their harvests can be sold which increases the revenue for the family. Members of the community were coached in setting up income generating activities. They were trained in setting up cooperatives. Today, no less than 80% of the population is involved in some activity that generates income, working within a cooperative. Families are also able to satisfy their non-food needs.