History

A Short History of the Rwanda Group Trust

The story of the Preston based Rwanda Group Trust is interwoven with events in Rwanda before and after the genocide.  Preston teacher, Joe Bamber, together with his wife Rosemary, had set up a third world support group at St Gregory’s parish in 1977 and had made links with Rwanda through a religious sister who was working there.

  Historic tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis erupted into the genocide of 1994 when an estimated one million people were killed in only 100 days.  During that period, men, women and even children were literally “torn from their homes” and murdered.

A visit by Joe  in 1995 after the Genocide, when he took several students from Newman College, revealed the devastation caused by the genocide.  This prompted Joe to redouble his efforts to raise much needed funds through car boot sales, raffles and other parish events.

Joe Bamber with trustee Myra Gregory on a visit to Rwanda with some of our Rwandan friends

In 1998 Joe formed a group of trustees to join him and the group became a registered charity called the Rwanda Group Trust.

 The founding principle of the charity is to:
“help the poorest of the poor in the fields of health, food, shelter and education”.