Act For Solutions(AFS)

How It Started

In 2005, Agape Community Church implemented two charity projects; the first entitled “Agape self-help project” aimed at improving the livelihood of poor communities. Through a “self-help approach”, the project built their capacity in creation of small income generating projects in order to improve their living conditions. The approach brought together people of the same social class for saving purposes in order to create small and medium income generating projects thus improve their living standards. The second project named “Agape Living hope”, empowered poor communities through students’ sponsorship, provision of HIV health care including counseling, nutrition services and provision of health insurance among others. These activities were however reaching few beneficiaries in accordance with the church capacity.
When Mr. KABANADANA Antoine, a Rwandan and member of Agape Community Church obtained his MA Degree in Development Studies from Erasmus University of Rotterdam-The Netherlands, he returned back to his country. One day when he was moving around, he met 5 children aged below 10 years who were not going to school but spending their entire time begging food for their families. When Mr. Antoine discussed more with those children he found out that their problems were rooted in their families where households could not provide for their needs. He immediately remembered the above mentioned charity projects and decided to discuss with the church elders to have the projects formalized into a legally recognized and independent NGO so as to expand them and benefit more people. He therefore decided to put hands together with other two professionals and formalized the project into a registered NGO; Act For Solutions (AFS). AFS aims at transforming the lives of rural communities who live in poverty and experience food insecurity. Special focus is paid to socio-economic empowerment of rural women and youth. The focus on women is due to the fact that women play a paramount role in the wellbeing of a family, as emphasized by traditional sayings that “Umugore ni umutima w’urugo, a woman is the heart of a home”,“Ukurusha umugore akurusha urugo, with a great woman, a great home is assured”. Importantly, AFS targets youth empowerment because they constitute a high percentage of unemployed population in Rwanda