Valentine’s Message Transforms Lives of Abused Rwandese Women

Nashville, TN (PRWEB) February 7, 2007 -- The same message that serves as a poignant Valentine’s Day reminder of caring for family and friends—“you are treasured”—provides a constant source of healing for Rwandese prostitutes gaining the courage to leave the streets. In his search for tools to empower the women, who very often have suffered years of abuse and degradation, Sisters of Rwanda executive director Jared N. Miller suspected that total transformation might arise if rather than hearing that they’re merely accepted, a despised rank understood that they are treasured and full of potential they’ve never dared to perceive.

Miller, a Nashville native now based in Kigali , Rwanda, tests that bold assumption every day. To reinforce the message, each of the Sisters of Rwanda, as both the organization (www.sistersofrwanda.org) and the women it serves are known, receives a white silicone wristband boldly embossed with the message “TREASURED” upon her enrollment in the program. Then she is bombarded by the message daily by Miller and co-founder Pastor Joseph Ayienga.

It’s working.

“I was so moved when Pastor Joseph found me on the streets and didn’t judge me. He saw something beautiful inside me and knew that I could be a leader,” said Virginia Mkanyandwi, the first Sister to join the program and now an HIV educator and house mother to all the Sisters. “I am happier now than I have ever been, because now I am seen as a successful mother, not a prostitute.”

“It’s our goal to provide opportunities for these women and reinforce that they are honorable, loved and treasured. It’s a message few of them have ever heard, but one that is deeply welcomed,” Miller says.

Still, it can be a hard message to accept. “The lives they’ve led up to the point when we meet them has been horrible beyond the comprehension of most of us who grew up in the West.”

Many of the Sisters entered prostitution as young girls when their parents died of AIDS, leaving them, literally, on the streets without means of support. Others were raped by military personnel or other authority figures and bore children from those encounters. In Rwanda , where even university graduates find it nearly impossible to secure reliable incomes, teenaged single mothers and orphans can reach the point of desperation very quickly. And once they enter the commercial sex trade, the women encounter even more peril. In addition to the fact that prostitution is the number one vector of HIV transmission in Africa, sex workers in Rwanda face daily physical danger.

Mkanyandwi, for example, suffered painful weekly canings on her legs by local police, who often then gang raped her and others they had rounded up for punishment. Two years ago, pregnant with her second child, she worked up until the very evening she delivered him. Without other means of feeding her growing family, Mkanyandwi reluctantly returned to the streets only two days later.

“We see Sisters every week who have been beaten almost to the point of death because of their profession,” explains Pastor Ayienga. “They are accepted by no one and seen as only objects by their ‘clients.’ So we go to their homes during the week to remind them that they are loved unconditionally…that they are treasured.”

Miller, whose background includes successful stints as a Nashville entrepreneur, insists that the organization isn’t just dispensing a feel-good message, though. “We’re investing in their futures and those of their children by teaching them sustainable business skills. It’s truly an investment in these women, not a handout.”

Miller anticipates that most Sisters will remain in the program for one to two years, learning first the basics of sound business practices then making products for sale in the U.S. and Rwanda. The first project, already underway, is the manufacture and sale of upscale necklaces based on traditional Rwandan basketweaving techniques.

While sales and distribution channels are being developed for the jewelry enterprise, the non-profit uses another tactic to fund its operations. Not coincidentally, its offering trumpets a familiar message: TREASURED, stamped in bold lettering on the same white silicone wristbands worn by the Sisters themselves. The organization’s website, www.sistersofrwanda.org, offers the bracelets in exchange for a modest donation.

“When we looked at options for funding our start-up costs, we wanted something that would speak to people everywhere with the same message we tell our Sisters,” Miller explains. “It’s a message we all need to hear, and one that we don’t tell the most cherished people in our lives—our children, spouses and friends—often enough. Plus, we all know people who are hurting, discouraged or struggling who need to know that we care. We see people ordering a dozen of these at a time to give as Valentine’s gifts or reminders to their entire circle of friends that they’re cared about.”

The popularity of the wristbands in the U.S. confirms Miller’s intuition about the power of the message. Of course, Miller and Ayienga also hope the bracelets remind donors of the women who were once considered blights on society but who now are breaking the cycle of abuse and poverty and rising as leaders in the community by embracing the message that, above all, they are treasured.

For more information about the Sisters of Rwanda or to request TREASURED bracelets, visit www.sistersofrwanda.org.

Contact:         
Betsy Jones
615.259.5188-w
615.542.1396-c                                                                                                   

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