A Gwynedd grandmother has travelled to Rwanda this week to finish an HIV project.
The project has overcome many obstacles since its inception a few days before the UK shut down from Covid in 2020 .
Ros, 77, travelled to Rwanda in March 2020 and met with Bishop Enock to research projects for the registered charity to support.
She explained: “We found a church school in the east of rural Rwanda that was feeding 160 children a day on a food programme – probably the only food most of them had in a day.
“Sixty of the children were orphans of mothers with HIV who had died because they could not afford to buy food to take with their free medication.”
Ros met with 70 mothers with HIV – there were many more who were too ill to attend the meeting, who told her what they needed to survive and take care of their children.
They needed a sewing co-operative so that they could work together to make garments to sell at the local market.
One of the mothers told Ros: “No one will work with us because they are afraid they will catch HIV so we can’t earn money to buy food for our families. Without food I am unable to take my medication and so I know I will die soon.”
It was seven miles to travel for the school to find clean water so on Ros’s return the trustees decided to immediately send money to build water harvesting tanks to collect water from the roof of the church school, then to raise money to build a sewing workshop, a village well and eventually an orphanage.
“It was hard raising money during Covid due to other priorities but we began. Bishop Enock was to project manage the new building, then unexpectedly at the age of 52 he contracted and died of a throat cancer, this was a devastating blow for us, he was a wonderful visionary man,” said Ros.
“We decided to continue the project in his name, by last year we had raised the money and I bought tickets to go out last November to project-manage the build myself, we had the tickets, the insurance and the visa.
“But the following day our bank account was hacked via our Facebook account and we lost our Facebook page and all the money for the project that had taken so long to raise.
“It took weeks to get the money back and reorganise the project plans but now the workshop is almost finished and at last I am going out to buy the machines, tables, material etc to begin the project which will save hundreds of lives”
The group has a new Facebook page at last – facebook.com/thisearthisourhome – and the build is almost finished on the Enock Memorial Project to ‘commemorate a wonderful man who cared so much about others’.
Ros added: “Now we are raising money to build a village well and an orphanage. To support us please like our Facebook page, go to our website www.compassiondirectuk.org and send good wishes for our success.”