A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TRUST
Canon David Dale set up the Trust in 2001. Since the mid-1980’s, fellow members of the congregation at St John’s Church, Marchwood, Hampshire, had been supporting the Parish of Nyarugenge in Shyogwe Diocese. Following the 1994 genocide, three quarters of the population in that parish alone were widows and orphans – the needs of the people were great. David Dale visited 
Shyogwe Diocese for the first time in April 1999 and immediately recognised that funds raised in the UK could go a long way to helping a people so traumatised by the genocide. The Trust came into being and over the years has grown-both in numbers of supporters and in the numbers of Rwandans supported. In 2013/14, £24,000 was forwarded to Shyogwe Diocese to help with various projects and over the past five years over £200,000 has been raised.
Canon David Dale, former Commissary to Bishop Jered, is now retired but makes the occasional visit to Shyogwe Diocese and maintains a keen interest in the Trust. He is invaluable in his knowledge of the people and their family history and of a culture so different to that of the UK. He is pictured here with one of the many Rwandan families he has supported through the Trust.