HIRWA Foundation’s school opened its door in November 2018 with 1 classroom 15 students and 1 teacher after the founder, Habihirwe Jean Claude, also known as John, had to leave school to support his impovershed family. John, a strong believer in education, worked to save to buy land in his village to build a local preschool so that children from his community would never have to choose between education and survival.

The preschool school currently has 3 part time teachers and sees approximately 75 children Monday-Friday annually from the community through their preschool and primary education years. Currently the teachers provide education to 3-6 year old students with an additional instructor for parents providing literacy certificstions. There are also 2 regular support staff members. The school also hosts volunteers on-site to assist in instuction, constuction, and administrative tasks to support to development and maintanence of the school on a monthly basis.

Currently, students are walking up to 6km a day for primary school education. The Hirwa Children’s Foundation is seeking monetary support to continue it’s pursuits of increasing access to local education for children and youth. Through generous donations the school will be able to continue and increase their operating hours through providing teacher wages, construct a local primary school campus to decrease children dropout rates due to distance, as well as provide at least one meal to current preschool students a day. Further, the school currently pays partial fees for students to attend primary school for parents who cannot afford it. Donations and sponsorships are needed to continue this effort.

In addition, the foundation is seeking to provide accessibility support to the 25 local disabled children who cannot currently leave home to attend school by purchasing wheelchairs for these students.