Prayer News

Prayer Focus on Claire Wilkinson in Rwanda

Claire writes:

"When last I wrote I was just home for Christmas and I had a wonderful time - loved the snow and the cold and loved seeing so many friends and family. Whilst coming back to Kigali also felt like coming home, which is nice, I have found it a bit of a shock to return to temperatures in the 30s.

I've now been back in Rwanda for 7 weeks and since the moment I arrived we have been very busy. My first day back we submitted a final funding bid for a prison legal assistance project and we were overjoyed to be told 3 weeks ago that our funding was granted! So we are planning 11 months of work with prisoners in Kigali Central and Remera prisons, focusing on prisoners who have finished their sentence or were found not guilty, but are still in custody; and prisoners who have been in prison for over 2 years without any court hearings. We are still waiting for permission to work in these prisons but we are hopeful that that will be granted soon, and next week our new prison manager will start work - exciting times!

We have also been trying to re-start our student groups and 2 weeks ago we visited the group at the National University of Rwanda – always my favourite part of the job as they are so enthusiastic! We are also working hard with World Vision Rwanda to finalise our funding with them.

As usual, I have also found some time for fun in the past few weeks – a highlight was visiting Lake Bunyoni just over the border in Uganda where we stayed on Bushara Island. Arriving in a canoe by the light of a full moon to an island with no electricity situated in glorious mountains at 2500 metres I was reminded again just how beautiful this part of Africa is. We spent 3 days doing not very much at all – enjoying the sun and thousands of brightly coloured birds.

And finally we have just held our first ever Board retreat – we went away to a local retreat centre to consider how to improve Lawyers of Hope further and what work we can do to increase the impact of our organisation. We had a lot of fun and it was well worth it!"