The child will remain part of the program as long as they have financial support from an advocate.
Unfortunately, rare circumstances may require a student to be exited from the OVC program. Such conditions include: distant relocation of family, improvement of a family’s financial situation, inconsistent school and/or church attendance, or inappropriate lifestyle choices.
An advocate’s monthly support provides a student with school tuition, uniforms, health insurance, and more. It also contributes to the spiritual, academic, physical, emotional, and social formation that are a part of the school programs.
If you would like to become an advocate, please indicate your interest below. You will be contacted with available partnership possibilities.
Ideally, a sponsorship will last until the student has completed secondary school and is prepared to either begin college or enter the workforce. Advocates are asked to commit to a single calendar year, renewed annually. While not required, we hope advocates will continue to support their students throughout their academic careers, including, in some cases, college.
Financial support will be accepted online through your MyGrace Account or by check. Login to your MyGrace Account here. (Checks can be mailed or dropped in the campus offering boxes). When you give, please denote in the memo line that the support is for OVC Rwanda.
Please do not include your OVC Rwanda support in your regular church giving. For tracking purposes, all OVC funds are to be submitted as separate transactions.
Payment is due by the first of each month. You can also choose to give annually.
All gifts and donations must be approved and processed through Grace Church. Funds will be transferred to the OVC offices in Rwanda and utilized at the discretion of Rwandan partners. No support should be directly coordinated through the advocate and student.
In an effort to offset the additional costs that students face when changing schools in the new year (new books, uniforms, possibly housing, etc.), our partners in Rwanda ask us to increase the tuition to the next school rate beginning in August. This is done to avoid asking advocates to make a larger payment during the holiday season in December.
Yes! You will receive letters, photos, and RCRI updates each year. These may take a while to receive, as the child may live in a remote area or may require assistance in writing the letter, even before translating to English.
While RCRI is committed to providing advocates with error-free and updated information on their child, there are unfortunately circumstances in which a child’s name may be spelled differently or a living situation is described differently from letter to letter. In most cases, the child gives RCRI workers the most accurate information they are capable of, which must then be translated to another language. Sometimes a living situation, such as the relationship of the child to the adults caring for him or her, is confusing to the child and they will refer to grandparents, aunts, uncles, or even siblings as parents. Sometimes a child’s situation is in such a state of flux that he/she has difficulty describing their life. Although this is rare, RCRI understands the confusion this can cause and is committed to resolving this whenever it happens.
Advocate letters are delivered in-country by our Rwanda mission trip teams throughout the year. We ask that letters be delivered to the church well in advance of a mission trip to allow time for processing, packaging, and delivery to the team prior to departure.
You will receive a schedule of trips and the corresponding deadline for delivering your letters to the church, along with reminders leading up to the due date.
Suggested Letter-Writing Topics:
When writing to your child partners, please avoid writing about or sending pictures that contain the following:
Note:
• Grace Church may return letters to the advocate when inappropriate content is included
• If an advocate is has the opportunity to travel to visit their student, liaisons at Grace Church will oversee the initial communication
• No monetary support should be directly coordinated through the advocate and student.