The Apprentice Adviser's Rwandan Mission

Nick Hewer is well recognised in the UK as Lord Alan Sugar's adviser in the reality television show The Apprentice but, increasingly important to him, he is also patron for the Hopes & Homes for Children charity.

The charity helps with housing and healthcare for vulnerable children and their families in 10 Eastern European and African countries. "They're essentially ensuring that children grow up in a family environment, but in Rwanda particularly that they're taken out of malnutrition and grow up to be healthy kids - thats the core objective" says Hewer.

In Rwanda, 20% of children die before the age of 5 from malnutrition, malaria and HIV/AIDS, mainly malnutrition. While in Rwanda, Hewer visited one of the 3 'hubs' which treats over 1400 people. These 'hubs' were built to provide shelter, clean water, food and healthcare for children and vulnerable families. "They get a free healthy meal, sex education, inoculations, HIV testing, the weighing and the follow-through with the children so they come back again and again, so they're brought back up to proper weight levels".

Self-help is also part of the project as families are encouraged to keep rabbits as a low-cost source of protein and there are small 'micro' loans to encourage enterprise in the most difficult of circumstances. "I saw one young kid, he was 14, he looked about eight because he was so malnourished, he was tiny. He was sleeping in the corner of a mud hut that is about the size of a potting shed without anything in it. He's now clothed and back in school, but critically, they gave him £20 so he could start a peanut business, roasting them in his little hut and selling them in the market. That little kid can now afford to feed himself, clothe himself and pay his school fees... and suddenly he's a little businessman. Wonderful."

Nick Hewer said "I took away with me the memory of a very inhibited population. They went through the most terrible time, a million people killed in 100 days. I know it was back in 1994 but its still a repressed population. I also got the impression of a country that are really going t0 fight their way through."

This is rewritten from a BBC article (click here) about how high-profile names can help raise awareness of a disease or condition, and bring it under the spotlight. Their video series talks to those in the public eye about their personal reasons for speaking out.