23-year-old Patrick Nizeyimana has loved art for as long as he can remember. When he was five, he recalls being ‘surrounded by art’.  

Nizeyimana, born and raised in Kigali, is now a visual artist based in Kigali. His dream was to become a doctor, but after completing high school, he didn’t get a scholarship to go to university, and his mother couldn’t afford to pay for a science course in university. So he embraced art. 

"My mother was not very supportive, she was would always complain that I was wasting time when she’d find me trying to create something,” he recalls. 

Nizeyimana says many artists welcomed him when he was a child inside their galleries and taught him what he knows today.

It is this kind nature that inspired him to also do good for others, and as his career progressed, he decided to start a programme for children, mostly underprivileged, to help them learn more about art and culture. 

"I started this programme because I wanted to share the privilege I had when I was young. I grew up around art galleries and was always there to learn how to paint, traditional dance, and everything artistic. So I decided to recreate something like that for the children in my neighbourhood and elsewhere, to get the essence of art like I did,” he says.

"I started drawing and dancing at a very young age, getting inspiration from small art programmes in my community. I was inspired by them, and I decided to also start a programme that could give vulnerable kids the same inspiration,” he adds. 

Patrick Nizeyimana, a local artist. 

Nizeyimana who owns NP Art Centre started the programme during the pandemic, with children who always seemed to roam about the streets. It was, he says, a space for them to stay busy and out of trouble, and also learn some things.

"Most of these children always wandered aimlessly around, spent too much time on the streets. So we started this programme to keep them busy and off the streets. During this time, they learn how to paint, they learn traditional dance and they are also guided on good behaviour,” Nizeyimana explains.

He had to get permission from the children’s parents, and explain the programme. Sometimes, the children take their paintings home to their parents. He currently works with 35 children, seven of whom were homeless. The homeless children, however, eventually made friends from the programme, and now stay with their families.

The centre is also home to various paintings from different local painters, and works as an Airbnb home for travellers. They have exhibitions at the end of every month, and sell the artwork, which assists in buying materials and other essentials for the children. 

Children in the programme are between the ages of 3 and 15, some of them are in school, and some are not. 

"The programme will help us send some of the children that are not studying back to school, and buy school materials, with the income we get from selling the artwork, including theirs,” he says.

Besides learning about art and culture, the program is designed to help older children become established artists.

"We are preparing them to be better artists in the future. We are always happy to see them busy while learning new skills through art outside school,” he says.

They learn to be disciplined, and kind and respect other people, Nizeyimana adds.