For 24 years, Frank did not know who he was and when he finally found out, the law almost left him with nothing. This is the story of how HAGURUKA is giving Rwanda’s most vulnerable people a fighting chance in court and beyond.
For 24 years, Frank did not know who he was.
He had been raised believing his grandparents were his parents. Then his birth certificate told a different story, registered under his aunt’s name, fathered by a man named Alphonse who had disowned him at birth. When Frank finally reached out to his father, he was rejected a second time. He was in his mid-twenties, carrying a question most people never have to ask: Who am I, legally, to anyone?
In 2022, he walked into HAGURUKA’s offices. Two years later, during pre-trial proceedings, his father acknowledged paternity on the record, committing to support Frank’s upbringing, education, and basic needs. “I finally know who I am,” Frank said.
His story is not unique. Across Rwanda, HAGURUKA has become the organisation people turn to when the legal system feels too distant, too expensive, or too overwhelming to navigate alone. In 2025, the organisation provided essential legal aid to 2,375 individuals, primarily women and children facing challenges that ranged from denied paternity to domestic violence, property disputes to identity documentation.
The work is painstaking and deeply personal. Drafting legal briefs. Covering DNA testing costs. Accompanying rightsholders to court. Ensuring that someone who cannot afford a lawyer does not therefore lose their case or their children.
For many clients, the journey to justice begins not in a courtroom but in a quiet conversation, a neighbour’s recommendation, a village leader’s referral, a moment of courage after years of silence. HAGURUKA meets people at that moment and walks with them the rest of the way.
Marie Claire, she had heard about the organisation through a neighbour.
Mukandamira Marie Claire came to HAGURUKA after her partner, Sylvestre, denied paternity of their two children and demanded a DNA test, knowing she could not afford one.
HAGURUKA provided legal representation, prepared all documentation, and covered the cost of testing. DNA analysis confirmed paternity. The court ordered Kagabo to provide financial support. He appealed. The lower court’s decision was upheld.
“Justice was achieved,” Marie Claire said. “My children now have their father’s legal recognition and the financial support to which they are entitled.” Without HAGURUKA, she adds, none of it would have been possible.
Behind each of these cases is a quiet but consequential truth: legal recognition changes lives in ways that go far beyond paperwork. Children learn their fathers’ names. Mothers obtain the child support they were always entitled to. Women fleeing abusive households secure protection orders and divorces that end years of physical and psychological harm.
Property unlawfully withheld is returned. And individuals burdened for years by rejection and denial experience something they had almost stopped expecting: relief.
HAGURUKA’s approach throughout is rooted in listening without judgment, explaining without condescension, and supporting without rushing. Clients are helped to understand their options and make informed decisions at their own pace. Where legal proceedings surface deeper emotional wounds, the organisation connects people to psychosocial support, because justice, in their view, should heal rather than harm.
And people like Frank, who spent two decades without a clear answer to the most basic of human questions, finally have one.
HAGURUKA’s work rests on a simple but radical conviction: that justice should not be a privilege reserved for those who can afford it. Thousands of stories marked by inequality, silence, and denial walk through their doors every year. They walk out differently