Frederic Ndabaramiye, co-founder of the Ubumwe Community Center (UCC), was maimed in 1998 when he was 15 years old - by those responsible for the genocide - when he refused to kill other people. After spending a year in the hospital, Frederic went to live at the Imbabazi Orphanage. The PIC team met Frederic at the orphanage, and, in 2003, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium arranged for him to come to Columbus to receive prosthetic hands. A film crew from ABC‘s Prime Time television show spent a week in Columbus documenting Frederic’s daily activities and Charlie Gibson, host of Prime Time, interviewed Frederic. The segment titled – Frederic’s Story - aired November 27, 2003. Frederic thanked people at the Columbus Zoo for giving him an opportunity to be independent again, and stated that he was determined to do something to help improve the lives of other disabled people.
In 2005, Frederic, Jessica McCall, and Zachary Dusingizimana, a teacher at the Imbabazi Orphanage co-founded the Ubumwe Community Center (UCC) in Gisenyi, Rwanda. Their original goal was to respectfully assist disabled children and adults. The UCC is making it possible for disabled children to go to school, and they are providing disabled adults with skills needed to make traditional crafts so they can be economically independent. The UCC also started a program to help deaf children, who have never been able to attend school, but now are receiving classroom instruction in sign language. PIC also is funding new braces and prosthetics for children and adults at the center and provides the annual operating expenses for the UCC.
To expand its reach and provide additional needed services, in 2007, the UCC began to build a larger, more permanent center for its operations. Funded by PIC and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, the new center opened in November 2008. Both Jack Hanna and a representative from the Office of Rwandan President Paul Kagame attended the dedication ceremony for the new center. Today, in addition to its original services, the UCC now offers English and computer classes to people who attend the center and to other people in the local community; illustrating to local people that they can benefit from conservation programs.
When the PIC team visited the UCC in June 2010, Frederic and Zachary provided updates and information on new programs. Nine of the hearing impaired students have progressed to a point where they are now able to enter a local primary school, all at the same grade level. PIC will provide funds to hire a teacher who will go to school with the children and act as a translator between the primary teachers and the deaf children. The annual salary for this teacher is only $3,000, yet this small amount will give these remarkable children an opportunity to go to school that they would not have had two years ago.
To assist disabled adults who successfully completed classes in sewing, doll making, banana leaf design or weaving at the UCC, the UCC helped the graduates form a new artisan association. With funding from PIC, the UCC is renting work space, providing sewing machines, and other materials to help the new association begin their new business.
Zachary and Frederic added jewelry making classes to adult students at the UCC. The papier mache jewelry is made by recycling calendars from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. The beautiful necklaces, bracelets and earrings are designed by the jewelry makers.
PIC continues to fund the annual operating expenses for the UCC, but Zachary and Frederic are creatively generating money to offset expenses. For instance, they rent classrooms to a church for their Sunday service and to a teacher who uses classrooms during the evening for instructions in English. A boutique at the center sells items made by adult students; the student receives 40% of the sale price, the center receives 40% to cover the cost of materials and 20% is set aside to repair sewing and weaving machines.
The UCC is helping disabled adults learn new skills, is offering deaf children an opportunity to attend school, is enriching the lives of mentally challenged children, and making it possible for disabled children to go to school. Every corner of the center is filled with love, hope and laughter. And, once again, a humanitarian project is blending with conservation. Rwandan officials have expressed interest in using the new center as a model for other centers across the country to illustrate not only how Rwandans are helping each other but also how zoos in the United States are participating in conservation and humanitarian programs in Rwanda.
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