EFFORTS to improve life for the Rwandans were fuelled when North Dorset fundraisers visited the scene of the 1994 genocide.

Chris Brickell, chairman of governors at Shaftesbury School and Billy Kelly from the aid organisation Msaada, visited the church at Nyarabuye where around 20,000 civilians were massacred.

They saw clothes belonging to the victims, human skulls and bones.

"It was a most dreadful experience," Chris recalled.

"To see the rows and rows of human skulls with the damage inflicted by all sorts of implements was truly shocking. The image will stay with me forever."

Billy said the image sickened and frightened him: "I have never been so close to the darkness that lies hidden in the heart of man."

The trauma has motivated the men to double their efforts to help the survivors rebuild their lives.

Through Msaada, an organisation born in North Dorset of which newsman Fergal Keane is patron, they are setting up a "honey for money" bee-keeping project in eastern Rwanda.

The project aims to boost the incomes of 200 impoverished families by developing modern bee-keeping skills in areas where bee-keeping was widely practised before the genocide.

Honey and beeswax are in demand there.

Local schoolchildren were presented with sports equipment, which had been donated by the Bristol Lawn Tennis Association.

During the 100-day massacre, around one million Tutsi people were butchered by Hutu militias.

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  • To help Msaada improve the lives of those left widowed or orphaned by the genocide, call Billy on 01747 823690.