‘One Love’ project gives new hope to Rwanda’s limbless

A promise made by a disabled Rwandan refugee 17 years ago to anybody willing to fight for his freedom has evolved into an international effort — and lifelong devotion — to offer for free artificial limbs, crutches and wheelchairs to anyone who may need them.

Founded in the hills of Rwanda during the civil war, his project has expanded to Burundi and is soon coming to Kenya.

Born in Kigali, Rwanda, Mr Gatera Rudasingwa was forced to flee his homeland in 1987 because of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict. Adding to his struggle was the fact that he had a disability – a legacy of a medical malpractice when he was a child. He needs a crutch and prosthesis legs to walk.

Ending up in Nairobi in 1989, Mr Rudasingwa met Ms Mami Yoshinda (now his wife), who had travelled to Kenya from Japan to learn Kiswahili. After Mami returned to Japan, Mr Rudasingwa tried to fly to Bujumbura, Burundi, but the flight meant a stopover in Rwanda.

When he arrived in Kigali, the Rwandese capital, “they (security agents) came onto the plane and said: “Everyone Rwandese this way, everyone else that way!” he told me in an interview when he and his wife came to Nairobi recently.

“I was handcuffed and taken to jail. They took all my money, cut my dreadlocks and locked me up just for being from Rwanda.”

An American friend of his heard of his plight and helped to arrange his release, travels to Burundi and return to Nairobi, where he received a letter from Mami inviting him to Japan.

“When he came to Japan in 1991, I saw his prosthetic leg was an antique, it was actually broken, so he got a new one,” she said.

During his time in Japan, Mr Rudasingwa convinced his wife to quit her job and go back to school to learn how to make orthopaedic and prosthetic limbs, because there was such a demand in his homeland.

“I told her: ‘If you love me like I love you, then you will go to school and take a change of scene, and we will live together in Rwanda. You need a job; and my country has so many people with disabilities that need help,’” he said.

After living in Japan for six months, Mr Rudasingwa told his wife he no longer wished to live like a refugee and would return to Africa, as she completed her training, and he would begin to set up a workshop.

It was 1992 and the Rwandan Patriotic Front was in the middle of the Rwandan civil war. At a camp in the town of Mulindi, in northern Rwanda, there was a podium from which any refugee could address a crowd as well as RPF leader and current Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

“I asked the soldiers to please keep fighting for us so that we could return home, and that if they lost their leg or arm in battle that we would earn them a prosthetic limb free of charge,” said Mr Rudasingwa, who extended the offer to civilians.

A year and a half later, the genocide began.

“The RPF stopped the genocide so we could go home, but there were so many people that needed help,” he pointed out. “They say 10 per cent of Rwandans have a physical disability of some sort.”