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Pulitzer Center
More information on this and other projects can be found at the Pulitzer Center's Web site.

Click here to see the Thetford teens describe their Rwanda experience for a Public Television program.

Children Affected by HIV/AIDS
The Vermont-based non-profit group that's implementing Project Independence, a program in Rwanda for orphaned teenagers.

Operation Day's Work
A program in which students at high schools across the United States raise money for a project of their choosing that helps young people in a developing country.

Unicef Fact Sheet
Explains how AIDS, poverty and other problems affect children in Rwanda.

The following sites provide general information about the AIDS epidemic in Rwanda:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

2006 AIDS Epidemic Update

Rwandan History:
Key Dates

Pre-20th century: Tutsi cattle-herders dominate Hutu farmers through a feudal system headed by a king.

1894: Count Von Goetzen of Germany is the first European to set foot in Rwanda.

1899: Rwanda becomes a German colony with no opposition from the Rwandan king. After World War I, the League of Nations gives Rwanda to Belgium.

1959: Hutus overthrow the Tutsi monarchy, causing tens of thousands of Tutsis to take refuge in surrounding countries.

1962: Rwanda gains independence from Belgium under a U.N. General Assembly resolution.

1990: A rebel force (Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF), made up mostly of exiled Tutsis, invades Rwanda, leading to civil war.

April 6, 1994: Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and the president of Burundi are killed when their airplane is shot down over Kigali. The massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus begins immediately in the capital. Hutu extremists will kill some 800,000 people over the next 100 days in a government-backed genocide that spreads throughout the country.

July 4, 1994: The RPF takes control in Kigali, ending the genocide on July 16.

2001: Faced with an overwhelming backlog of genocide-related cases, the government decides to use a community justice system called gacaca to prosecute some of the alleged perpetrators.

2003: Adoption of a new constitution that sought to erase ethnic divisions. Paul Kagame, who led the RPF during the civil war of the 1990s, is elected president and the first legislative elections are held.

Source: U.S. State Department 		Rwanda map

Rwanda by the Numbers

Size: 26,338 square kilometers (slightly larger than Vermont)

Population: 8.6 million (most densely populated country in Africa)

2006 Human Development Index ranking: (based on life expectancy, education and standard of living): 158 out of 177 countries

Orphans under 18 due to all causes: 820,000 (about 18 percent of all children)

Orphans under 18 due to AIDS: 210,000

Number of children living in child-headed households: 101,000