Christian Action for Reconciliation and Social Assistance (CARSA) was created in 2004 and is registered as Local NGO which aims to support communities in Rwanda in their journey towards healing, forgiveness, reconciliation and holistic development. Its vision is a society reigned by a culture of Peace, solidarity and unity in diversity. CARSA focuses its activities on the areas of peace building, trauma healing and reconciliation, equipping youth as well as economic development.

CARSA equips and trains youth, students to empower them to live in harmony and become agents of healing and reconciliation in their communities.

The organisation trains and promotes unity from diversity among young leaders, build relationships and develop character to enable them to be a source and agents of holistic transformation of the nation.

CARSA brings together genocide survivors and perpetrators and assist them with opportunities for welfare in various peace building initiatives.

CARSA empowers children to become peace builders

The organisation works mainly in Southern Rwanda in the rural areas of the Kamonyi and Muhanga districts. It mainly targets groups as youth, genocide victims and perpetrators as well as their families.

As a community-based organisation, CARSA works with leaders on different levels of the community, and works hand in hand with the youth, their school leaders and their parents. Through Peace Clubs, they help children go beyond the prejudices inherited from their families and learn to solve conflicts in a constructive way. This helps each member of the peace club to feel included and be part of the big picture of building peace in his/her area.

One of the current projects implemented by the organisation is entitled: “Rwanda: Young Generation Peace Builders”. The project aims at contributing to the strengthening of the reconciliation process in Rwanda and encouraging the culture of peace building in the minds of Rwandan. Youth are the most important actors in the future hope of the country. To achieve this, the proposed program builds upon the work began in the 25 peace clubs of Kamonyi and Muhanga, in different activities that will help them live it in their daily lives. These include trainings on debates and dialogues that will be provided to trained students in the 25 high schools that currently have peace clubs and Training of Trainers for the teacher supervisors of the Peace Clubs.

Through the debate training, CARSA intends to help youth understand what he/she is being told, develop critical thinking and filter out what is better. This can help in sustaining peace, as the student will be equipped to think about what he is told and bring out his arguments in a constructive way. In addition, trainings on dialogue help equip the youth with the capacity of listening to and respect the ideas of other people, and celebrating differences. This can build sustainable peace in the minds of the youth, as they will be able to handle different ideas to theirs without necessarily letting them escalates into arguments and fights.