Rwanda experienced Africa's worst genocide in modern times, and the country's recovery was marred by its intervention in the conflict in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The country has been beset by ethnic tension associated with the traditionally unequal relationship between the dominant Tutsi minority and the majority Hutus.

Although after 1959 the ethnic relationship was reversed, when civil war prompted around 200,000 Tutsis to flee to Burundi, lingering resentment led to periodic massacres of Tutsis.

The most notorious of these began in April 1994. The shooting down of the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart near Kigali triggered what appeared to be a coordinated attempt by some Hutu leaders to eliminate the Tutsi population.

In response, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched a military campaign to control the country. It achieved this by July, by which time at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been brutally massacred.

Some two million Hutus fled to Zaire, now the DR Congo. They included some of those responsible for the massacres, and some joined Zairean forces to attack local Tutsis. Rwanda responded by invading refugee camps dominated by Hutu militiamen.

Statistics from the general census revealed that the Rwandan population is mainly young. Persons who are below 25 years old represent 67 % of the population. Another fact, which illustrates that the Rwandan population is young, is the low percentage of those persons who are above 65 years old. They represent 3 %.

Estimates indicate that households that live below the poverty line represent 65.7 % in rural areas as opposed to 14.3 % in urban areas. Poverty strikes also hard in rural areas where 45 % cannot meet their food needs.

Since the late 90’s, Rwanda repeatedly witnessed socio-political conflicts, some claiming more lives than others. All those atrocities culminated into the 1994 genocide. During this period, the youth were exploited and manipulated by politicians to carry out destruction.

Such exploitation was out of control and often dramatic, which led the Rwandan youth to actively get involved in massacres and the 1994 genocide.

80 % in rural youth and 2/3 in urban youth suffered from malaria. According to available statistics 25 % of adolescents are sexually active below the age of 18. A health and demographic survey conducted in 2000 revealed that 7 % of adolescents that are between 15 and 19 years are pregnant or have already delivered.

The August 2002 general census of the population provides alarming percentages of the youth aged below 26 who have no parents to look after them.

1. 64.67% lost their mothers and fathers;

2. 22.80% lost their fathers;

3. 4.84% lost their mothers;

4. 6% did not respond to the question;

5. 0.15% do not know;

6. 3.55% provided unspecified answers.

Almost all of those young people either witnessed or experienced violence in their direct environment. For all those orphans, we need to recognise that their socio-economic environment is characterized by poverty and deprivation.