About the Foundation
Kittelson Charitable Foundation (KCF) started out of a desire to help our friends and their families. Founded in 2007, KCF currently contributes money, computer equipment, & school supplies to underprivileged youth in Rwanda. We believe in fully and completely meeting our commitments and charitable choices, choosing to saturate our aide on a specific cause or causes rather than spread ourselves thin. Want to help? Please, visit our donation page.
History & Future
Emmie’s Village is the reason for the creation of KCF. Emmie Asaba, a Masters student at Cornell University interned for Kittelson & Associates, Inc. in the summer of 2007. During his internship, KAI had the opportunity to learn more about Emmie and the Village where he was raised. Emmie is Rwandan, but lived most of his life in neighboring Uganda due to the friction that existed between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes at the time. He grew up in an agriculturally-based village where cattle were the main form of currency, where there was no water or electricity, and where most children stayed at home and helped with the animals in order to follow in their parents’ footsteps. He is one of the very few in his village who went to school – first primary, then secondary, then college, and finally on to Cornell University. He has a great desire to help the people in his village and country to work their way into stable and productive lives, and is very sure that their education is key to this. He entered into civil engineering and then transportation engineering because he saw this field as a great way to provide direct aid to villages like his own -- by building roads and basic infrastructure that would allow them to create enough economic vitality that they could afford to educate their children and move toward a more sustainable economy.
The people of his village have come to see the value of education as well, but don’t currently have the ability to provide for themselves in this regard – according to Emmie, they only earn on average about $250/year. Education is pretty cheap by our standards: a primary school student can be sent to school for about $50/year (this includes tuition, books, and the uniform they must wear). A secondary school student, on the other hand, costs $400-$600 per year because, in addition to the tuition, books, and uniform, they must also be boarded at the school (it is too far away for them to live at home).
Approximately 80% of the primary-age children in his village are receiving tuition support from church-related charities. However, very few of the estimated 30 teenage children in his village who are capable of going to secondary school are doing so – there just isn’t enough support for this higher cost. Emmie says this is a critical age for them – if they’re not at school and living with others who are also going to school, then they are in the village with a lot of time on their hands and, consequently, the potential to go astray.
Through Emmie’s contacts in his village in Rwanda, KCF was able to create relationships with trustworthy contacts that serve as intermediary for delivering tuition fees to secondary school. KCF has committed to funding these children through school and hopes to fund such other worthy causes in the future.
