The Teenager Mother Project
When ROAR AFRICA takes guests to Rwanda, our itinerary includes a visit to one of the most powerfully transformative projects we know: the Teenager Mother Project in Kinigi, at Virunga Volcanoes. It was founded and is run by locally born and raised Emmanuel
In Rwanda’s Musanze District, an unintended pregnancy can alter the course of a young woman’s life in an instant — interrupting her education, straining family ties and narrowing her future before it has had the chance to unfold.
The Teenager Mother Project exists to change that trajectory.
In Rwanda’s Musanze District, an unintended pregnancy can alter the course of a young woman’s life in an instant — interrupting her education, straining family ties and narrowing her future before it has had the chance to unfold. The Teenager Mother Project exists to change that trajectory.
Based in the Kinigi sector, the project welcomes young single mothers into a year-long residential program that provides far more than vocational training. For twelve months, the center becomes home, offering food, clothing, medical care, family planning, reproductive health education and the stability needed to begin again.
At the heart of the program is a professional sewing curriculum that gives each woman a practical, marketable skill and a pathway to financial independence. Upon graduation, every participant leaves with her own sewing machine and returns to her village equipped to establish a small business. Because the women come from different communities, they are able to build livelihoods without competing directly with one another.
The impact is both economic and deeply social. As these young mothers become self-sufficient, they are no longer seen as a burden. Many are welcomed back into their families and communities with renewed dignity as mothers, providers and valued members of society.
Since the project began in 2020, 250 women have graduated, with 50 mothers and their children being welcomed every year. The youngest girl admitted has been 15 years old. The sewing center was built in partnership with the Austrian NGO Future for Kids, who continue to co-run the training program. An adjacent Early Childhood Development Center cares for up to 45 children while their mothers train. A new women and children's center is now under construction to provide ongoing support for graduates as they take the next step toward independence.
Emmanuel Harerimana was born in the mountains around Kinigi. His family’s survival was once tied to poaching inside Volcanoes National Park as a means of getting by in a landscape where poverty and proximity to wildlife often collided.
But his life has taken a different path. Through conservation education, a JICA-funded training program in Japan and his appointment as one of Rwanda’s top-rated park guides,
Emmanuel came to understand that conservation can only endure when communities are given a meaningful stake in its future.
In 2011, he founded the Muhisimbi Volunteer Guides Association, creating a pathway for unemployed young people from the villages surrounding the park to train as community and gorilla guides. The Teenager Mother Project grew from that same conviction: that people protect what they are given a reason to value — and that dignity, opportunity and conservation are inseparable.
"We as young people have to play a big role in our communities to convince our fathers and neighbors that they can protect the park instead of destroying it — and show them exactly what kind of benefits they may get if they are conserving that park."
— Emmanuel Harerimana
Voice of Youth in Conservation
The Teenager Mother Project sits within Emmanuel's broader organisation, Voice of Youth in Conservation, which operates across three areas:
The Teenager Mother Project
Sewing training, childcare, and reintegration support for young single mothers in Kinigi.
Muhisimbi Volunteer Guides
Community tourism and gorilla guiding, creating employment for over 20 young people from villages around the park. Several guides, including Emmanuel himself, began as volunteers and became licensed RDB park guides.
Eco-clubs
School holiday conservation camps hosting 100 children aged 10–12 for two weeks, building the next generation's connection to the park on their doorstep.
The wider impact of the organization to date includes clean water access for 6,000 people, school support for over 50 children, housing for vulnerable families, 1,000 solar lights distributed, health insurance support, scholarships, and a sanitary pads project — much of it funded directly by visitor generosity.
ROAR AFRICA includes the Teenager Mother Project as part of our Rwanda itinerary, offering guests the opportunity to visit the sewing center in Kinigi, meet the young women in the program and support their work directly.
Guests may purchase handmade pieces at the center, place orders after their visit, or buy selected items through the Wilderness Sabyinyo lodge shop. Proceeds go directly back into the project, helping to sustain the training program and the women it serves.
Support can also take the form of donations, whether financial or practical. Some guests choose to contribute funds, which are managed and distributed by Emmanuel Harerimana himself. Others are moved to respond in more immediate ways. One family, after visiting
the center and seeing what was needed, went with their guide to local shops to buy food, baby products, diapers and essential supplies, before returning to give them directly to the young mothers in the program.
This is not a model built only on grants or distant philanthropy. It is built on relationship, proximity and the quiet power of seeing for oneself. When travelers walk through a community, meet the people whose lives are being changed and understand what is needed, support becomes deeply personal.
When you travel with ROAR AFRICA, you become part of this story — one in which conservation, community and human dignity are inseparable.
Learn more about the Teenage Mothers Project at [LINK] To travel to Rwanda with ROAR AFRICA, begin the conversation here.
Emmanuel Harerimana was born in the mountains around Kinigi. His family’s survival was once tied to poaching inside Volcanoes National Park as a means of getting by in a landscape where poverty and proximity to wildlife often collided.But his life has taken a different path. Through conservation education, a JICA-funded training program in Japan and his appointment as one of Rwanda’s top-rated park guides,Emmanuel came to understand that conservation can only endure when communities are given a meaningful stake in its future.In 2011, he founded the Muhisimbi Volunteer Guides Association, creating a pathway for unemployed young people from the villages surrounding the park to train as community and gorilla guides. The Teenager Mother Project grew from that same conviction: that people protect what they are given a reason to value — and that dignity, opportunity and conservation are inseparable."We as young people have to play a big role in our communities to convince our fathers and neighbors that they can protect the park instead of destroying it — and show them exactly what kind of benefits they may get if they are conserving that park." — Emmanuel Harerimana
Emmanuel Harerimana was born in the mountains around Kinigi. His family’s survival was once tied to poaching inside Volcanoes National Park as a means of getting by in a landscape where poverty and proximity to wildlife often collided.
But his life has taken a different path. Through conservation education, a JICA-funded training program in Japan and his appointment as one of Rwanda’s top-rated park guides,
Emmanuel came to understand that conservation can only endure when communities are given a meaningful stake in its future.
In 2011, he founded the Muhisimbi Volunteer Guides Association, creating a pathway for unemployed young people from the villages surrounding the park to train as community and gorilla guides. The Teenager Mother Project grew from that same conviction: that people protect what they are given a reason to value — and that dignity, opportunity and conservation are inseparable.
"We as young people have to play a big role in our communities to convince our fathers and neighbors that they can protect the park instead of destroying it — and show them exactly what kind of benefits they may get if they are conserving that park."
— Emmanuel Harerimana
