There are an estimated 2500 survivors of the Rwandan genocide currently living in the UK. Many of them are young orphans and widows who witnessed terrible atrocities at a very young age. Many of these survivors are still struggling with the post genocide era, coupled with tackling isolation, trauma and lack of self-esteem and this resulted in incidences of challenging behaviour and severe depression.

There is a major role to be played by Hope Survivors Foundation and other community based organisations in helping survivors to fully integrate and to allow them an environment in which healing and recovery can take place. Hope Survivors Foundation represents the needs of survivors; the organisation has a large numbers of vulnerable people affected by trauma and requires short and long-term support. Besides the Medical Foundation, there is an absence of other functional support government services, which can assists survivors of torture.

Hope Survivors Foundation works closely with the Medical Foundation for care of victims of torture which assists survivors through therapy sessions.

As well as working with survivors and their families, Hope Survivors Foundation also works with schools, social workers and other statutory authorities to help them understand the very specific problems and needs of survivors in the UK.

Hope Survivors Foundation encourages the Rwandan community in the UK to be collectively responsible for the care of physically and psychologically affected survivors, promoting self-reliance as way of making them more confident and independent, and less vulnerable in the long-term.

Special emphasis for Hope Survivors Foundation is to reduce isolation, relieve trauma and create networks in which a healing process can flourish. Creating a network of survivors is particularly important for isolated survivors relocated all over UK through the refugee dispersal programme.

Hope Survivors Foundation offers survivors:

• Support: providing forums to share personal experiences and rehabilitation
• Representation: working with survivors to provide opportunities to ensure their views are represented
• Education: facilitating survivors to speak to schools, local community organisations and interested parties
• Memory and Remembrance: enabling survivors to record their testimonies, and help publish them too. The commemoration of the 1994 genocide remains our annual core event, an occasion to call upon our collective awareness as survivors of the genocide, to pull together all our energy to remember our loved ones and towards genocide prevention

Hope Survivors Foundation will continue to raise the profile of its work, to raise awareness of the Rwandan genocide and to form strong support base survivors. We will establish relationships with survivors of other genocides, and work to ensure that society learns of our experience to build a better future for all.