Niyo Art Centre Gives Hope to Children with Horrible Past

It’s five O’clock in the evening. The first sounds of drums penetrate the quiet Kacyiru neighborhood, Kigali, where Niyo Art Centre is located.

Inside, a group of adults are standing behind five waist-high drums they beat furiously but happily, as some dozen children or so respond to the sounds of the African drumbeats with scintillating dance. There is also a group of singers that belt out songs to accompany the drums.

After about nine minutes, the sounds of the drums slowly fade, and the dancing children wipe their brows of sweat and their feet of dust, as they prepare for another performance. A group of five tourists huddled together in front of performance clap their hands in unison.

However, despite the glow in their faces after being lost in the frenzy of their performance, what is indiscernible is that these children have a past. A horrible past.

Some of them have hitherto spent their lives on the streets, and slept on empty stomachs. They have only known pain, hunger and suffering throughout their brief existence in the world.

Some of them come from indigent backgrounds, their parents too poor to afford their meals, not forgetting education. Some of them are orphans who have never experienced parental love.

But now, their faces are beaming with hope for the future, thanks to Niyo Arts Gallery. Founded by Pacifique Niyonsenga in 2015, the art gallery has become a cradle of hope for these children who now go to school and also have a roof over their heads, as opposed to their former life where the world was too full of void and hopelessness.

Niyonsenga, himself a former street boy until a benevolent hand, a Canadian named Bruno Soucy, became his close friend, plucked him off the streets and helped him get education, says the art gallery was established to help them use their talents in arts to assist these vulnerable children.

He had established a charity organisation in 2012 to help street children get education as a tribute to his Canadian benefactor.

Niyonsenga, a prodigious visual artist and a drummer, says the charity organisation started with only 28 children in 2012 but now has 120.

“We have made tremendous development since its inception. We have managed to take the children to different schools, buy them scholastic materials and rent them houses in Gasabo district, Kigali,” Niyonsenga said in an interview with Chwezi Traveller.

He says that Niyo Art Gallery has now established a reputation as a top tourist attraction in Gasabo district, Kigali, on its own merit because of the programmes they have initiated and attractive arts and handicrafts that can be found inside the gallery.

Niyo Arts Gallery now has 11 artists displaying their artwork there. He says he and the other artist at his gallery donate 40% of their artwork sales to educate and house the children. They have also managed to attract a group of donors that support their programmes.

“We have managed to take one of our children up to the university, 23 are in secondary school while 68 are in primary. It’s gratifying that when art lovers purchase our products, the proceeds go for good purpose,” says Niyonsenga.

Apart from operations in the gallery, he adds that they also do exhibitions and sales abroad where they raise up money to plough back to help the children.

He says that in 2017 the centre held 10 different exhibitions: two in the USA, one in Belgium, one in Netherlands and Six in Kigali. “We have also acted as ambassadors of our culture in different capitals around the world when we showcase Rwanda’s arts and crafts abroad.

Most people in the Western world know Rwanda because of the insidious genocide, and they get mesmerized when we go out there and show them the real Rwanda,” says Niyonsenga.