The DiDé Foundation thanks you for your support. Your support is essential to continue, consolidate and develop projects for the most vulnerable detained populations.

Silent for several months and in order to keep you informed of the activities and achievements of the Foundation during this year 2018, we send you this first publication of the "DiDé Flash Info".

The DiDé organization in 2018

2018 represents a year of changes for the Foundation and for the activities developed in Rwanda. This year was marked mainly by the end of the project carried out since 2014 in the Rehabilitation Center for minors of Nyagatare and the start of the project for women prisoners, in particular those living with their young children, in the Prison for women of Ngoma.

Nyagatare Rehabilitation Center for Minors

The project, started in 2014 and lasting three and a half years, officially ended in December 2017; DiDé officially handed over the equipment to the Rwandan prison authorities during 2018. Focused on providing comprehensive support for detained minors and support for restoring links with the outside world , the project made it possible to ensure quality care for these minors and to facilitate their reintegration into society.

Thanks to this project, more than 400 minors and young adults have benefited from:

quality school education recognized by the Rwandan authorities or professional training in welding, masonry, carpentry, sewing, hairdressing and computer science;

support in psychosocial terms, or even mental health care adapted, when necessary, to individual needs;

group activities, such as theater-forums, artistic workshops, civic workshops and sports activities;

support for restoring and maintaining links with family and loved ones, including reimbursement of travel expenses related to visits;

the delivery of basic school or professional materials in the form of kits in support of reintegration actions.

Finally, to allow local actors and partners to appropriate the approach proposed by the Foundation and to ensure its continuity in the center, DiDé employees have specifically worked on the training of psychologists, trainers and staff of the center , as well as raising awareness of local and national authorities responsible for prison management.

The whole project, with a total budget of CHF 1’020’800.08, was made possible thanks to your generous contributions, which is why we thank you.

Arts and crafts

Ngoma Women’s Prison

A new project started in January 2018; it is led by the DiDé team in Rwanda in partnership with the city of Leuze (Belgium) and Wallonia-Brussels International. The first financings were granted by the European Union, Wallonia-Brussels International and by the British Embassy in Rwanda. This project focuses on the needs of women in detention and those of the children who accompany them.

Rwandan law provides that children under the age of three accompany their imprisoned mother, and they therefore evolve in a context of private psychological and social support, and without the possibility of establishing links with the outside world. Based on the approach developed by DiDé over the past years and implemented in other contexts, the project intends to meet the specific needs of its beneficiaries, focusing in particular on:

• the creation of a psychosocial consultation room, a training room and a crèche;

• school education and professional workshops to support these women who are currently three quarters of them, either illiterate or without primary education completed;

• the development and implementation of a psychosocial and mental health support program;

• a program to restore ties to family and loved ones, as less than one in ten women are currently visited.

During the first six months of the project, the following achievements were achieved:

• the study and planning of interventions to bring to current structures, in order to create classrooms as well as the crèche;

• the purchase of equipment and the repair of sewing machines, with a view to creating a professional training workshop, which will start operating in early 2019;

• awareness and training of prison staff in the area of ​​mental health prevention, and their role in psychosocial support for prisoners;

• an assessment by psychologists of the mental health needs of women prisoners, as well as the development and translation into Kinyarwanda of several diagnostic tools;

• the purchase and provision of two mobile phones for female detainees to call relatives and family members;

• the establishment, in collaboration with local actors, of a program preparing for the integration and monitoring of children who have reached the age of three and who leave prison to live with guardians.

For a better understanding of the activities carried out, we invite you to watch the film made by DiDé on the Nyagatare project.