Venice Non-Profit Goes to Rwanda Africa!
By Wyatt
Valentine
Jessica McCall, a Venice
resident since 1962, founded Jessie’s Place, a non-profit organization in
Venice in 1990, where it originally provided a sober living environment for
people living in recovery.
Jessie’s Place also has provided
community centers with outreach programs, advocacy for families and at-risk
youths in the greater Los Angeles area, the Pico Union District and in the
Venice area.
Through the years,
Jessie’s Place has provided assistance to an orphanage and a community
center in Mexico. McCall also went to Guatemala, where she assisted a mobile
medical clinic.
In 2005, McCall
visited Gisenyi Rwanda where she met two extraordinary people, Frederick
Ndabaramiye (who had both arms cut off during the genocide) and Zachary
Deusingimana (who teaches English at the Imbabazi orphanage). They decided to
open a community center called Ubumwe, which means unity or
togetherness.
The Ubumwe center
provides services for handicapped genocide survivors, people with birth defects,
street children and classes for deaf
children.
Our main goals are
to:
• Reduce the number of
beggars
• To teach skills to the
handicapped
• Reduce
illiteracy
• Create jobs for
handicapped
• Making a place
where all handicapped and disadvantaged in Ginsenyi can share and discuss their
problems
• To show other people
that the handicapped can do many things in our society and that they can help
others to find a way they can support
themselves.
Since 2005 the
center has grown and serves approximately 50 people a day where they have
classes in English, sewing, card making, and indigenous crafts, which are then
sold to help feed their families and eliminates the need for begging. The
Ubumwe Center provides an environment of loving acceptance and nurtures
self-esteem through a sense of community and empowerment through education, hope
and healing.
Leaving again
for Rwanda Africa in November, Jessica will be bringing greetings, supplies, and
hope from. We wish her a safe and wonderful
trip.
If you would care to
learn more about the Ubumwe Center and the work Jessie’s Place is doing
please visit jessiesplace.org.
Posted: Thu - November 1, 2007 at 02:05 PM