SOS Children's Villages Rwanda started working in Rwanda in 1979 with its first SOS Children’s Village in Kigali. With the increasing famine in the former Gikongoro Province and the subsequent death of many children and parents, another Village was established in 1992 to protect the lives of those children. In May 1994, during the Genocide against the Tutsi, SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda started an emergency program in Ngarama ( former Byumba Prefecture), which later became SOS Children’s Village Byumba (Gicumbi) In 2011, SOS Children’s Villages Kayonza opened.