A Journey of Purpose and Passion
When Darlin Musoni returned to Kigali in March this year, it was meant to be a short visit, a few weeks with family and friends before taking up a well-paying job offer in the UK. He had spent the past few years working and studying in Europe, developing a promising career as a special needs educator.
As he reconnected with former students, met their families, and saw the gaps in support for children with special needs, leaving didn’t feel right anymore. “I started helping out for free, just while I was here, but the more time I spent with the children, the harder it became to walk away,” he said.
A Calling Disguised as a Side Gig
Musoni’s journey into special needs education wasn’t planned. In 2016, he was a law student, fresh out of his first year at university, when he took a temporary assistant teaching job at Green Hills Academy in Nyarutarama. What was supposed to be a side gig opened his eyes to a different calling.
“I didn’t even know what ‘special needs’ meant, however the first time I saw a child go from being non-verbal to speaking, because of something we did, I knew this was bigger than me.” He spent six years at Green Hills, learning on the job, building bonds with students, and falling completely in love with the work.
Eventually, his desire to grow professionally took him to Europe in 2021, where he both studied and worked in special needs environments across Poland and elsewhere.
Learning and Growth in Europe
In Europe, he gained hands-on experience with structured therapies like speech, occupational, and physiotherapy, all of which were far more developed than what he had seen back home. “There, each child has access to specialists, here, we barely have three speech therapists in the whole country, and they’re not even Rwandan,” he said.
While on vacation in Kigali earlier this year, Musoni reconnected with families of former students. One conversation led to another. Parents shared stories of how little support they still had. Friends asked why he was planning to take his skills back to Europe instead of using them at home.
“I realised I was working hard, but not for my own community (the children) I grew up with. That’s when I started thinking, what if I stayed and opened my own center?”
Building from Scratch
By June, the idea was already taking shape. Musoni and a few trusted friends pooled their savings, enough to sustain a small center, even at a loss, for six months. The focus was never to scale fast, but to start strong.
“I didn’t want a big school; I wanted one that makes a difference. I recruited a small team of four and trained them thoroughly. Some looked great on paper but lacked a natural connection with the children. Special needs work requires heart; you can’t fake it.”
Special Needs Centre Rwanda officially opened on September 8 in Kibagabaga with a maximum capacity of 15 children. So far, six students have been enrolled, most of them with autism, Asperger’s syndrome, dyslexia, or developmental delays.
More Than Therapy
This is not a daycare or a typical school, but a specialised center providing services that are limited or unavailable elsewhere in Rwanda. Children receive speech therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and behavioral therapy, including Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), which is Musoni’s area of expertise.
“The aim is to work with each child closely, understand their needs, and prepare them to join mainstream schools. We want them to leave here, but only when they’re ready,” he said.
In Rwanda, most children with disabilities are not formally diagnosed due to a lack of diagnostic centers and professionals; as he explains, “we can only say we ‘suspect’ a child has autism or another condition, based on assessments and behaviors, but we can’t give official diagnoses. That’s still a big gap in our system.”
Challenges and Progress
The center charges Rwf700,000, a month per child, a fee that includes access to all therapies and one-on-one support. Originally, it was Rwf 800,000, until a sponsor stepped in to help reduce the cost. Still, affordability is a challenge.
“The hardest thing is turning away a parent who desperately wants help but can’t afford it. Some of these families have already been exploited by fake solutions like people promising miracles, or charging high fees for low-quality care,” Musoni said.
He noted that trust is an issue as years of misinformation and stigma around disability have left parents suspicious. Many come in with doubt and pain. “Some were told to pray the disability away. Others were told their child would be cured in six months. There’s so much trauma,” he said.
The Power of Environments
Musoni added that something as simple as eating can be impactful as some parents tell him, ‘My child can’t take milk’ or ‘They don’t drink juice’ yet at the Centre they do. “We try everything, as long as they aren’t allergic and that’s where the change begins, routine changes can be hard, but necessary.”
He mentioned challenges that children face such as sensory sensitivity where they need noise-cancelling headphones just to function, since they can hear everything at once like the trees moving, a conversation across the room, even a plane in the sky. This is said to cause chaos in their brain.
Healing Beyond the Center
He said that this is tough as many parents are single mothers, some abandoned by their partners simply because they had a child with disabilities. Others hide their children due to shame or cultural beliefs, associating disability with witchcraft or bad luck.
“There’s still a huge lack of awareness, even here in the city, if you mention autism, someone might say, ‘Oh, I think I have heard of that disease.’ So you can imagine what it’s like in rural areas.”
Vision for the Future
Musoni’s dream isn’t to grow this one center into a giant institution. Instead, he envisions opening multiple small centers, each limited to 15 students, to maintain high standards of care.
“This work can’t be rushed or mass-produced, if we try to take in too many children, we fail them.” Musoni wants to contribute to a change in how Rwanda understands and supports children with disabilities, from education to health, to policy, and beyond.
For now, his focus is on the six children in his care, with nine more expected to join soon. Musoni is driven by a belief that these children deserve better, and he’s determined to play a part in making that happen.
A Man Behind the Mission
Outside of the center, Musoni is still a young man living life. Born in Kimironko, Kigali in 1997, he is one of three siblings and the second-born. He laughed when asked what his parents think of his work. “They were shocked. I was very stubborn as a child, they never thought I would be a teacher,” he responded.
Before this, he wanted to be in the military inspired not just by his father’s service, but by a desire for justice. He considered studying law at one point because he thought he was good at arguing. He is not yet married, still “searching for love,” as he puts it, but he finds joy in basketball, travel, and, recently, reading to gain more knowledge as his profession requires him to keep learning.
