The Imbuto Foundation is set to celebrate 20 years of existence, impacting lives in Rwanda.

Founded in 2001 by the First Lady Jeannette Kagame, the foundation has been working a number of activities to engaging, educating and empowering communities in Rwanda, for example through providing scholarships to students, and rewarding girls for outstanding performance in national exams.

Imbuto began its journey as PACFA Programme - Protection and Care of Families against HIV/AIDS – which aimed at providing opportunities to ensure dignified lives for Rwandans by promoting, protecting and caring for families living with HIV/AIDS, particularly children, youth and women.

This also included women who were deliberately infected by HIV during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi.

In 2007, PACFA changed its name to Imbuto Foundation as it embraced new programmes and initiatives other than those focusing on HIV/AIDS, and has since emerged as a trusted and committed partner in Rwanda’s development arena.

Over the past two decades, the Foundation grew to embrace and manage programme portfolios aligned with government priorities in health, education as well as youth and women empowerment.

Among these, late last year, Imbuto’s Promotion of Girls’ Education Campaign (PGEC) marked 15 years of existence, where it had reached out to up to 5,088 students to by late 2020 – sensitizing them towards education.

Under the PGEC program, each year, parents, teachers, local leaders and students interact with inspirational role models and hear their testimonies on the importance of education, in addition to awarding the best performing girls from across the country.

To celebrate such and more achievements made in the last two decades, Imbuto will be holding a series of events and activities throughout this year to highlight its key areas of interventions and flagship programmes in the fields of health, education as well as youth and women empowerment.

"These activities will serve to reflect on past and current contributions that respond to Rwanda’s most pressing needs, and to showcase its vision to become a catalyst for sustainable change,” read a statement from the foundation.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the anniversary celebrations be held virtually, with activities to give opportunity to the audience to learn about the foundation’s challenges and successes of the past 20 years.

Audiences will also learn about Imbuto Foundation’s vision for the future, and hear from the very people it serves about the impact the Foundation has had on their lives.