Meet Gilbert,

a KHA Graduate That’s Giving Back

By John Gasangwa

Please meet 23 year old Gilbert Niyitegeka, one of KHA’s first graduates! Gilbert was among the 21 students who joined KHA in 2016. Gilbert comes from a poor family in Boneza who lives on $1 a day. His family grows crops like potatoes, beans, maize and owns about 100 coffee trees! Gilbert has 7 siblings. When Gilbert failed middle school in Boneza, he dropped out of school and started working as a porter carrying cement and concrete on construction sites in Boneza.

When Arise Rwanda started building Kivu Hills Academy in October 2015, Gilbert came to work as a porter carrying bricks, cement, rocks, sand, and mixing concrete. He was making $1 a day working for 8 hours without having breakfast or Lunch. While working, he asked the school administration if they would enroll him to Kivu Hills Academy when the construction of the school is completed. When the school said YES that they would take a chance on him even if he had failed middle school, he started to save the money he was making to be able to buy school materials when school started. When KHA opened, Gilbert was enrolled in KHA in the Masonry trade learning construction. However, his family couldn’t afford the full-year tuition to keep him in school. They had to sell off part of their plot of land to keep him in school but still this wasn’t even enough to keep him in school.

Finally, when Arise Rwanda started the scholarship program for the poor students from Boneza, Gilbert was one of the students who benefited from this program. After completing high school at Kivu Hills Academy, he had good grades for him to join university, but his family couldn’t afford to pay for his university. Arise Rwanda paid for his university education and Gilbert graduated last December with a degree in Civil Engineering. He has been working at Kivu Hills Medical Center as a foreman. This school term, Gilbert was hired as a teacher at Kivu Hills Academy teaching construction technologies. Gilbert keeps excelling as a schoolteacher and the school principal is grooming him to take on the leadership of head of Construction Department at Kivu Hills Academy.

Gilbert has the DNA and the vision of KHA at heart! He makes good, steady income now as a schoolteacher and supports his family and siblings at home.