Dedicated donations are voluntary donations from godparents that we organize twice a year: in April and October. Godfathers then pay for the purchase of necessities such as beans, rice, soap, cutlery (spoon), shoes and mattresses, or the purchase of a goat. Collected donations are handed over to the children’s family.

Before leaving for Rwanda, we send a detailed list of donations to all school principals, so upon our arrival at the school, it is known exactly to whom what goes during the distribution. The director calls on the parents of the godchildren that (due to the weight) they can take the contents of the dedicated donations, but also for safety reasons, because unfortunately there is also the possibility of robbery.

Goats serve as the only meat these children will eat for half a year. The goat is most often kept for special occasions such as communion, confirmation or weddings. Goat’s milk is used only for newborns and the sick. Unfortunately, there is no possibility of longer storage and preservation of meat or making dairy products such as cheese and yogurt.

We don’t buy knives and forks because they don’t know how to use them, so injuries can occur. We only buy spoons because using them reduces the possibility of infection. Only three years ago – everyone ate with their hands. Unfortunately, all other children still eat with their hands, so they are exposed to infections much more than the children included in the Roadmap project.

Now all schools have spoons, and so do the families of Putokaz godchildren, because through dedicated donations, the godfathers buy spoons for the godchildren’s households as well.

The soaps we procure through this part of the project are used for personal hygiene, prevention of infections, and also for washing the few clothes they own.

Mattresses are a big priority for us in order to change life for the better. Even “richer families” sleep on mats less than a centimeter thick, while the rest lie on the bare ground, which increases the risk of disease and infection even more. Some children lie down on a mattress for the first time at the age of ten or fifteen. Their happiness is indescribable to be raised at least ten centimeters from the ground, so three children often sleep on one mattress.