Rwanda - The Domino Effect
Rwanda. Here, people will never forget that there was a time when human life meant as much as one shot or machete strike. It is a country with a background of genocide. A country, in which there still live those who are treated as useless, worse. It is here that Dominika Kulczyk supports deaf children. Some of them, thanks to the hearing aids, will hear their parents’ voice for the very first time!
24 years ago, in Rwanda, a million of people died within just 100 days. The Hutu were killing the Tutsi. The media all over the world was overloaded with news about this nightmare. And now? If you look at bare-bones statements, Rwanda is doing fine, it is stable in here. The reform implemented by the government of Paul Kagame has resulted in economic growth and improvements in the area of education. These are the statistics. Dominika Kulczyk and Kulczyk Foundation have seen what it is really like in Rwanda. In families with disabled children, who are perceived as broken things that should end up in a dustbin.
These children can only dream about free education. The state doesn’t want them at schools. But there are those like Louis – a teacher with mission. He decided to make a change and in 2013, he set up his own school for deaf and hearing-impaired children. This is the place, where they not only learn the sign language and school knowledge, but they also acquire other skills that are needed in life. They are given a chance to have a life that they dream about. But first of all, they are given a chance to have dreams at all.
In this episode, we learn the story of new pupils that attend the school of Louis – Eric and Kevin. These two say goodbye to their parents and, for the first time, enter a boarding school. At first, they are confused, because they have never been in such a situation before. They attend the sign language classes. At the same time, parents take part in similar classes, and they cannot believe that they will soon be able to communicate with their deaf child!
At this school, Dominika Kulczyk witnesses touching scenes. Children, thanks to the hearing aids, hear so far unheard voices of their parents, and say the words “mom” and “dad” for the first time! The obstacle has been overcome, what used to be impossible is now becoming possible. Kulczyk Foundation participates in that change by financing both solar-powered hearing aids for almost a hundred children, and sign language classes for almost a hundred parents.
Watch “The Domino Effect” on Sunday, April 8th, at 11:00 a.m. or on www.player.pl
The partner of the information action is the “Fakt” newspaper.
