Community Service Reflection from Senior Matthew Maniatty

Senior Matthew Maniatty had the opportunity to spend a week in Rwanda this past summer. Read his reflections below.

After meeting students from Hope Haven Rwanda’s debate team during a visit during last school year, I was eager to visit new friends to understand their school and country as they had made the trip here. I contacted Susan Hollern and after a few phone calls found out that it was possible to spend a week in Rwanda at the school. After learning about my new friends' compelling stories, I was extremely motivated and excited to explore a part of service in another country for the first time. Growing up in a household where service and giving back to the community were instilled in me, community involvement and helping others has been a big part of my life and extremely important to me. 

During my time in Rwanda, I played hours of soccer in the red dirt pitch, read books to students in between exams, helped students write letters to loved ones, visited families of students at the school at their homes, helped when community did their water walk where they carry 60lb water containers back to their houses from the stream and tap at hope haven.

After leaving Rwanda, I'm very excited to return in the near future and visit the two children my family is sponsoring. I was greatly impacted by the tight knit community that I was lucky enough to feel welcomed into for the time I was there. The hospitality and communal peace that exists surrounding this school reminds me of how special a place like Hope Haven is to the children it gives a chance at an education to, but also the surrounding neighborhood and community. The school serves as almost the center of the greater surrounding community, offering jobs, education, and most of all a caring place where children can grow up to reach their dreams that everyone deserves the right to.