Wilderness Rwanda and Children in the Wilderness (CITW) are super proud to announce the addition of 39 new learners to the CITW Rwanda scholarship programme, bringing the total up to 210.
Of the 200 scholarship students in the 2024-25 year, 29 recently graduated, leaving 171 current recipients. Along with these existing scholarship students, the 39 new learners make up the 210 scholarships for the 2025-26 academic year.
The funding for these scholarships has been made possible by generous donations from guests and trade partners of Wilderness Bisate, Bisate Reserve, Sabyinyo and Magashi, and we are very proud to extend this support to the children and their families, as well as their communities.
As members of the Eco-Club programme here since primary school, the 39 new scholarship recipients all started Senior 1 (Grade 1) at secondary schools in September 2025, at the beginning of Rwanda’s new school year.
The breakdown of children with scholarships by school is now:
- 100 Bisate SS – Wilderness Bisate & Bisate Reserve, Volcanoes National Park
- 50 Rwabiharamba SS – Wilderness Magashi & Magashi Peninsula, Akagera National Park
- 45 Kinihira SS – Gishwati community, Gishwati-Mukura National Park
- 15 Rushubi SS – Wilderness Sabyinyo, Volcanoes National Park
Bisate Secondary School has the highest number, as this is the first school that we started the scholarship programme at in 2019.
These 210 students are now sponsored for six years of schooling and they receive everything required for school, including school fees, school uniforms, school feeding, school materials, and also field trip fees.
In Rwanda, secondary school years run from Senior 1 to Senior 6. In Senior 3, all students need to write National exams. The results of these exams determine where the student will continue their remaining school years (S4 to S6). Depending on their results and area of study, many of our scholarship students are placed in boarding schools across Rwanda. This means that many of the CITW students who continue with S4, S5 and in S6 are now studying all over the country. So, besides the eight schools (four primary and four secondary) that Wilderness and CITW have partnered with, we support students in an additional 52 boarding schools all over the country!
These youths will continue their environmental education via our CITW YES (Youth Environmental Stewardship) Clubs. The YES Club is designed for older learners, and expands on the conservation concepts introduced in Eco-Clubs.
“We are already looking forward to celebrating our second group of graduate CITW students at the end of the 2025-26 academic school year – it’s such an amazing achievement, and news to be so proud of”, said Aline Umutoni, CITW & Community Manager. “We are also extremely grateful to our generous guests, donors and partners, whose continued support of the CITW scholarship programme makes such a significant contribution to Wilderness Rwanda’s Educate and Empower Impact pillars”.
