The founder of ASYV, Anne Heyman, was interviewed recently on Rwanda TV about the project. I think it’s possible this is the transcript of that interview. It is also possible it is the transcript of another interview. Either way, it gives the most complete understanding of the history and philosophy of the village you’ll get short of talking to her yourself:

…And we had a speaker, Paul Rusesabagina, who was the gentleman from the movie, Hotel Rwanda, that that movie had been made about. And I had dinner with him before the evening’s program. And my husband said to him, you know, “What’s the biggest problem facing Rwanda today?” And he said, “In a country where you have 1.2 million orphans, with no systemic solution to deal with them, there’s no future for the country.” Immediately it struck me that, you know, Israel doesn’t have an orphan problem. After the Second World War, there was certainly a tremendous influx of orphans. And what did they do with them? They built youth villages. And so I, actually, even at the table that night, said, “You should build youth villages.”…

For the full interview, click

.

And there’s more. Here are two links to a story by DJ Siegel about the village. She visited with the other journalist

, who I linked to last week. Alas, though DJ also interviewed me, I wasn’t good enough for her story either.