The Sisters of Rwanda is a humanitarian organisation which began in 2006 with the objective of ensuring justice, equality and sustainable economic opportunities for Rwanda's most oppressed and vulnerable women and children. They are doing this by freeing women and children from sex slavery and gender based violence with their key differentiator being that they are providing a sustainable outcome.  They say,

"From the very beginning of Sisters of Rwanda we set out to create a self sustaining organization. Traditional aid has been crippling Africa for decades. We are committed to creating sustainable opportunities for Rwanda, not providing more handouts and programs that create dependency, which only worsens the economic problems at hand.

At Sisters of Rwanda, sustainability is a top priority. Sisters of Rwanda is dedicated to creating systems, scalability and autonomy in every area of our organization. With income from our current income-generating activities, Sisters of Rwanda can provide a good (soon to be great!) salary to the women we serve. This enables them to leave prostitution and start the journey to financial health and independence.

We embrace the philosophy of “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.” Our desire is to teach the Sisters to “fish” and then give them “wings” to follow their dreams." Source: Sisters of Rwanda - Program

Background

Sisters of Rwanda, Inc., is a Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation with its principal office located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America. Sisters of Rwanda, Inc. is separate and apart from Sisters of Rwanda, a Rwanda based Non Government Organisation (NGO) located in Kigali, Rwanda.

The mission of Sisters of Rwanda, Inc. is to:

1. work with other organizations to help teach “vulnerable women and children” (as defined below) sustainable business and life skills, to help provide vulnerable women and children legal, medical, social and emergency financial support, to provide such vulnerable women and children with income generating opportunities and general health care, nutrition programs, and HIV/AIDS specific programs and to provide educational programs to such vulnerable women and children; and
2. make distributions to organisations that teach vulnerable women and children sustainable business and life skills, that provide vulnerable women and children legal, medical, social and emergency financial support, that provide income generating opportunities for such vulnerable women and children, that provide general health care, nutrition programs and HIV/AIDS specific programs for such vulnerable women and children and/or that provide educational programs to such vulnerable women and children.

* “Vulnerable women and children” means women and/or children:

1. that have experienced and/or are experiencing gender based violence such as rape, physical or mental abuse and/or gender based oppression;
2. that are poverty stricken;
3. that have insufficient resources to obtain food, housing and/or education;
4. that are widows and/or orphans;
5. women and/or children leaving the commercial sex trade; and/or
6. women and/or children who are or were victims of sex slavery.

"Any and all contributions that you desire to make to Sisters of Rwanda, Inc. should be made payable to Sisters of Rwanda, Inc. Any donations to Sisters of Rwanda, Inc. will be processed in the United States and you will receive a tax receipt for your charitable donation." Details of how this can be done are found from the Action Center of their website.

Soroptimist International Brisbane City have no direct association with Sisters of Rwanda but the organisation's mission is directly aligned with some of our objectives.  We also support sustainability as this is the only way we can truly have any chance at freeing the world of poverty and other humanitarian and social justice issues. Further information can be found at Sisters of Rwanda's website or from their very detailed press kit.