Rwanda FARG Scholarship for Genocide Survivors and Orphans

What FARG is

The Genocide Survivors' Support and Assistance Fund, known by its French acronym FARG, is a Rwandan government fund created to support survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. It was established under Law N° 02/98 of 22 January 1998 and reaffirmed under Law N° 69/2008, and provides support across education, health, shelter, social assistance and income generation for vulnerable survivors, according to socialprotection.org's programme record .

Who qualifies

FARG support targets people officially recognised as survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, and their children, who face financial hardship in continuing their education. This includes orphans who lost parents in the genocide and survivors left without a stable household income. Eligibility is determined at the local level, through district and sector genocide survivor associations working with FARG and MINALOC, rather than through a single national eligibility test.

What FARG covers

FARG pays school fees through secondary education and tuition through university for eligible survivors, alongside broader support such as healthcare and shelter assistance for the same population. Nearly 110,000 children and orphans have benefited from the fund's education programme across all levels, including university, according to reporting collected by Survivors Fund , a UK-based charity that documents FARG's work. Coverage of higher education support has grown over time as the generation that survived the genocide as children reached university age.

How to apply

FARG support is not applied for through a single central online portal. Eligible students apply through their local FARG-linked structures: sector and district social affairs offices, working alongside genocide survivor associations such as AVEGA and student associations like AERG at university level. If you believe you or your family qualify, the starting point is your local district office or the nearest genocide survivor association, which verifies your case before it is referred for education funding.

Scale of support over time

FARG's education spending has grown substantially since the fund's early years. In the 1998 to 1999 period, FARG paid school fees for 24,147 young survivors at secondary level and supported 295 students in higher learning institutions. By the 2017/18 academic year, FARG was funding 14,006 university students, reflecting how the cohort of children orphaned or displaced by the genocide matured into university-age applicants over the following two decades, per figures reported by The New Times Rwanda .

Why this fund matters for Rwandan students

For genocide survivors and their children, FARG remains one of the only dedicated funding routes into higher education that does not depend on academic competition alone, since it is built around historical need rather than merit rankings. Combined with broader Rwandan student financing support through the Ministry of Education, it gives eligible survivors a path through university that would otherwise be closed by lost family income and property.