Gemeni & Geraldine - ORI Funding Higher Education

Title: Gemeni & Geraldine
ORI -- Funding Higher Education
Photography & Music by Kasia Romanska
Written & Produced by Parker Snyder
Translation by Jennifer Schechter
In support: Dr. Allen Snyder

This year, 1550 young men and women wrote handwritten applications and walked them to one of five country-wide collection points. With an acceptance rate more stringent than Harvard, Orphans of Rwanda selected 68 students to enter University.

ORI foots the bill for tuition, housing and a living stipend.

What makes this class of talented young people unique is that they all, largely by cause of the genocide & HIV Aids, are single or double-parent orphans. Some suffer from headaches after being injured during the genocide. Others eat once a day because they are 1 of 10 people living under one roof. Some even take charge of the household.

Getting a scholarship is easy compared to the difficulties some face after entering University. The instruction is in English, French & Kinyarwanda. Some have bounced around considerably and academic skills have suffered. Still others leave behind a full household for whom they are primary care givers.

But they're Rwanda's future leaders thanks to ORI Inc., founded by two young men from the United States who bought Christmas gifts one year an orphanage and afterwards decided they needed to do something for all the talented young people condemned to an unfulfilled life for lack of funding for college.

University education is one way to promote unity in a society set adrift by ideological differences based on perceptions of ethnicity which in reality are hard to define after years of intermarriage. In a modernized market economy jobs are given to the most qualified, and as more and more people go to college, Hutu or Tutsi will cease to matter.

For that reason ORI is promoting unity among the Rwandese—one of the 12 Caring Habits.

80 Percent Angel -- Watch the video
To see Episode 10, click the link below:
http://www.80percentangel.com/?video=10

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• rwanda
• genocide
• orphans
• ori
• kigali
• parker
• snyder
• kasia
• romanska
• 80p
• 80percentangel.com
• 80
• percent
• angel

[Gary190tube]

you should tell us what the initials "ORI" stands for, so we can get some context please.