WCPRC - Barnens Värld, Childrens World - EN
WCPRC
The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child 2006:
AOCM
Napthal with the children
"Can anybody see him? Naphtal is the only one left, the rest of the family is dead. If you find him, kill him too!" 
   Naphtal holds his breath. He is lying in the river just a few metres from the men...

This happened in Rwanda in 1994, when at least 800,000 people were murdered in 100 days. 300,000 of them were children, and 100,000 children became orphans after the genocide. Naphtal Ahishakiye lost his entire family, his mother, father and four brothers. As Naphtal lay there in the river, he could never have guessed that one day he would start AOCM, L’Association des Orphelins Chefs de Ménages (the Association of Orphan Heads of Households), an organization that would one day be nominated for the WCPRC, for its hard work to give 6,000 of the orphaned children in Rwanda a better life...

> More about AOCM

Test your knowledge of the prize candidates 2006
Read the texts about the laureates 2006 and the children they help. Then try the quiz to see what you have learnt.
> Start the quiz
Why has AOCM been awarded?
AOCM received The Global Friends’ Award 2006 because the organisation fights for the children and young people whose parents were killed during the 1994 genocide. AOCM consists only of young people who lost their parents in the genocide, and together they now try to help each other create a better life. They want to be like a family in which you care about one another.
   Although most people in AOCM live in extreme poverty, they help each other with food, clothes, roofs over their heads, new families, access to healthcare and education. And most important of all: they give each other friendship and love. Over 6,000 orphaned children and young people get a
chance for a better life through AOCM – young people who might otherwise end up in a life on the street with drugs, violence, criminality and prostitution. AOCM fights for the orphans’ cause in Rwanda, by constantly reminding the government and different organisations that the orphans exist.
house
Welcome to my new house!
AOCM has built a total of 112 houses in different parts of Rwanda. Come and see one of the houses AOCM built for children in Rwanda.

> Welcome to my new house
Banana ball
Play banana ball!
Tayari, or banana ball, is based upon two people standing fifteen metres apart and throwing a ball of banana leaves to each other.

> Play banana ball 
Marie Grâce
Marie Grâce carefully touches the broken house wall made of red clay. When she was a baby she lived here with her mother and father. It was a real home then. Now it’s just a ruin...

> Meet Marie Grâce
portrait Janvier Tuyishimire
Janvier’s father and younger sister were murdered in the 1994 genocide. A few years later his mother died in a car accident. Since then he has lived on the streets of the capital, Kigali.

> Meet Janvier
portrait Vestine Uwinbabire
Vestine looks around carefully. This week’s Gacaca is special for her. She has decided to tell her story today to everybody who is here...

> Meet Vestine
portrait Jean-Claude Habineza

Jean Claude knows that he has had an opportunity that
many orphaned children in Rwanda can only dream about. 
  
"If AOCM hadn’t helped me, I would have ended up on the streets without the chance to go to school," he says.

> Meet Jean-Claude


What is genocide?
Genocide means trying to completely wipe out a particular group of people in one country or area.

> Read more about 
genocide
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