To know where one comes from,
to be informed about the fate of the loved ones relates to the inalienable right of all and each person.

How to support the activities of the CCMES

  • On-going financial support ensures the sustainability of activities.
  • Individual financial donations are most welcome!
  • Find out more

CCMES-Belgique is a Belgian non-profit organisation that:

  • Works to raise awareness concerning missing children and families torn apart by the war and genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994
  • Supports CCMES in Rwanda for the development and management of its activities

Context

The genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis has created turmoil throughout the country; over one million dead, thousands of missing persons, crimes long gone unpunished.
Children separated from their families may be abandoned at the frontiers, refugees in neighbouring countries, or sheltered by other families remaining in Rwanda. Some of these children are now re-appearing and looking for their family origins.

The challenge

“In Rwanda”, there is a widespread belief that any missing person not seen for some time is necessarily deceased; however, many parents are still searching for children of whom there is no trace, and many young people who were too young when separated from their parents do not even know their own name and need help to discover their origins and construct their identity.

Video title

An Impassioned Outcry FROM A HOPEFUL MOTHER

20 YEARS LATER : Documentary by Mukamulindwa Béatrice

Aims

To accompany

Children and families throughout their quest regardless of its outcome.

To reunite

Children and their families.

Sample image
To corroborate

Useful information to further search actions.

To track down

Children reported missing at the time, scattered throughout the Rwanda hill-country, as well as elsewhere in Africa and all over the world.

To find

All the families remaining without news of their children reported missing.

Actions

To assist

Any person, parent or child, contacting the CCMES in Rwanda, and looking for their family is assisted and supported by the CCMES. Meetings and excursions are regularly organised to combat isolation and to build relationships.
Occasionally, and when necessary, the CCMES provides individual follow-up.

To gather testimonials

Explain the importance of testimonials.
Explain the duties of volunteers, and their achievements.
The benefits of the achievements: a film
 : film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP-bKX_h6Lo
and
a booklet of testimonials
; https://lirenligne.net/detail-oeuvre-a-decouvrir/Anonyme/RETISSER%20L%27ESPOIR/5967.

Contact CCMES Belgium to obtain our printed booklet of testimonials.

To train volunteers

To find the missing children, the search must be advertised from one hill to the next, and from one family to another, firstly in Rwanda, but also throughout the world. It is also necessary to know how to communicate with people suffering from psychological traumas. CCMES ensures volunteers receive coaching on how to empathise with victims and to help heal the effects of trauma, and then mobilises trained volunteers to connect with communities, to highlight the issue of lost children, to gather testimonials, and to assist families in their search as well as the children found.

To raise awareness

Often in good faith, people cannot understand how parents continue to hope that children reporting missing long ago might still be alive.
To address this, the CCMES organises awareness campaigns in Belgium and in Rwanda to highlight the issue of children who went missing during the war and the genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda. This is a vital contribution to mobilising people to support this mission, especially as Rwandan children may be scattered throughout the world. Heightened awareness is essential to trace information that can lead to reunited families.
CCMES also focusses attention on the impossibility of closure for families with missing children, as well as on the identity issues faced by missing children who return to Rwanda, often with no access to their past.
In these awareness campaigns, the CCMES sometimes works in partnership with other associations and organisations.

For any information