From the outside, Madjengo looks like your typical mosque. Located in the Muslim-majority town of Gisenyi, at the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Islamic center houses a mosque and a madrassa, or religious school. But on a recent Friday morning, it’s also overrun by children who play on swings and slides and peek out of the windows of colorful classrooms labeled “baby,” “toddler,” and “middle.”
Madjengo is the only public center providing care and education for young children in a two-kilometer radius—what’s known as an early childhood development (ECD) center. In 2017, the Muslim community in Rubavu gave its extra unused space to the nonprofit Rwanda Interfaith Council on Health (RICH). With funding from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Dutch embassy in Rwanda, RICH turned the space into a playground, three classrooms, and a recreation hall. At any given time, 185 children of different religious backgrounds who are between three and six years old attend Madjengo.
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