-
-
-
Overview
-
The Philosophy
-
The History
-
Management Team
-
-
| 11/14/2005: | Anne hears talk about Rwanda genocide and conceives of concept to bring the youth village model to Rwanda |
| 9/2006: | ASYV recognized at Clinton Global Initiative |
| 11/2006: | Land for village site secured |
| 8/17/2007: | ASYV Groundbreaking |
| 12/15/2008: | First 125 students moved in to make the ASYV their new home |
| January 2009 | Classes began at the Liquidnet Family High School at the ASYV |
The History
The spark of an idea
In November of 2005, ASYV founder Anne Heyman and her husband Seth Merrin heard a talk about the Rwanda genocide. At a dinner after the talk, Seth asked the speaker to identify the biggest problem facing Rwanda. The answer was the vast number of orphans living on the streets or in child-headed households.
Immediately, Anne, a South African-born lawyer and mother of three living in New York City, connected the challenge of the Rwandan orphan population to the similar challenge that Israel faced after the Second World War, when there had been a large influx of orphans from the Holocaust. To care for these traumatized youth, Israel built residential living communities called youth villages. Anne was inspired to bring this model to Rwanda.
Making connections
Anne began reaching out to people in Rwanda, Israel and the United States, to share her idea and learn how to realize her vision. She met with officials at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), an international humanitarian organization, which agreed to offer logistical support for the project. The ASYV is now a special project of JDC’s non-sectarian international development program.
It takes a village
The JDC connected Anne to Dr. Chaim Peri, who runs Yemin Orde, one of the Israel youth villages on which the ASYV would come to be modeled. Established in 1953, Yemin Orde originally cared for orphans from the Holocaust, but since then has come to serve many other traumatized youth, including from South America, the former Soviet Union, and Ethiopia. Several Ethiopian Israeli graduates of Yemin Orde are now helping with the ASYV.