NIYONKURU Karim, a 14-year-old Burundian child, 5th in a family of 9, lives in the Kiyange II district of the Buterere zone in Burundi. He is a beneficiary of the “Improving Well Being for Education” project implemented by Jeunesse au Service d’un Burundi Meilleur (JSBM).
A former street child, due to his family’s extreme poverty, Karim went to school twice a week, and the rest of the time did odd jobs to earn money to support his family, or went dumpster diving as he lived near the national rubbish dump.
It was in 2017 that things improved for Karim thanks to his meeting with JSBM. Karim and his 6 educated brothers and sisters are educated without interruption at the Nanje Nobaho center. After lunch, the children have a play area allowing them to relax while waiting to start revising their lessons with the help of the center’s supervisors. This allows children not to indulge in wandering activities on the streets. The project planned school reinforcements for the children in the afternoons, on the one hand to try to raise their grades by having the children revise, on the other hand to offer a study space after school to the children because many of them do not have any in their very vulnerable households and hope that their children will bring in something. Third, it is about ensuring close monitoring of children so that they do not take to the streets.
Today Karim is in 6th grade and can continue his studies without interruption because at the start of the school year he obtains a school kit as well as tuition fees from JSBM. In addition, thanks to the project, he can eat after school and has space and assistance to revise his lessons.
Thanks to these improved learning conditions, among other things, thanks to the various training courses provided by JSBM in IT, children’s rights, Sexual and Reproductive Health, etc., to the various activities intended for young people set up in the center and as part of the project, Karim allows himself to have ambitions and dream big. In the future, he would like to continue his studies abroad and return to Burundi with everything he needs to pursue a career as a hacker.
