Editor,

My name is Navel Chikwanda. My wife’s name is Gloria; we are both natives of Zimbabwe but now live in California, United States of America.

After hearing stories of the Genocide in Rwanda through the web and online blogs, we realized there are some things my wife and I can do to help the children of Rwanda.

We have a project, self sustaining and funded 100% from the US by us and possibly donations from neighbors, friends and family.

More often than not, we throw away very nice pairs of shoes simply because our children (we have 3 children 8-12 years in age), no longer fit in those shoes.

As I read through and saw some videos and photos of barefooted Rwandan children, we felt for them and decided to start this project which we called "Shoes for Rwanda”.

Our goal is to donate shoes to school going children, between 5-16, of both sexes.

This project is funded by us. We also hope to get shoe donations from neighbors, friends, family and co-workers at my work place. We do not need any funding or financial help from Rwandans.

What we need is to help us identify 5 boys - 5 girls in any village. We need their names, age, their photos (if possible) and the village/town they live in.

We would like to know what class they are in, the name of their school, their headmaster and his or her phone number
If you can help, please contact us. We need to get the project started.

Best Regards,

Navel and Gloria Chikwanda
California, US
nchikwanda@verizon.net