The Shining Light Project lands in Rwanda to make a documentary about Hope Made Real!

It has been ten years since I first came to Rwanda, and today I landed back for my fourth visit here. It feels so special to be in this beautiful country!

My first visit was when we were building Indigo Volunteers as we designed a new approach to volunteering that overcame the ineffective (sometimes unethical and corrupt) volunteering programmes founded on imperialist models. Indigo was founded on the hope and belief that there could be a better volunteering model. We got lots wrong, but in the end, we achieved our goal. Above all the success of Indigo was the blessing of meeting and learning from the most incredible grassroots community projects who perform miracles in their communities.

One of those projects was Hope Made Real, led by the force of nature that is Mama Arlene.

Now 92 years old, I am here to attempt to make a short documentary of what will always be one of the most inspiring and moving places anyone can ever see. I hope it inspires people to learn from what they have achieved so they can follow in their giant but humble footsteps.

I will be off the grid for the next week or so (one of the beautiful things about being in the land of the thousand hills!) But I cannot wait to share updates and the documentary. It will be very amateur, given it's my first attempt, so I pray it does a good enough job of shining a light on the work of Mama Arlene and Hope Made Real.

The photo attached to this article is from our last trip with the amazing Tas. My t-shirt reads "KNOW HOPE." Mama Arlene and the story of Urukundo were founded on knowing that if you put the work in, you can always have hope!

Thanks for reading. Take care and have a great week.

Benjamin

I wholeheartedly thank the 808 people who have signed up for this community so far. It is incredibly humbling!