Kigali – 3rd July, 2019. RwandAir, the national carrier of the Republic of Rwanda, is pleased to announce that it is partnering with Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) to provide life-saving cardiac treatment to Rwandan Children. Eight children, four mothers, one doctor and one nurse will depart to Tel Aviv at 00:30 (local time) tomorrow morning in one of the first RwandAir direct flights from Kigali to Tel Aviv.
This partnership was possible as a result of our new route to Tel Aviv, RwandAir’s 29th destination. RwandAir inaugurated this new non-stop line on the 25th of June 2019, following an aviation agreement signed between the governments of Israel and Rwanda earlier this year.
This new route is operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with a
Boeing 737-800NG offering 16 seats in business class and 138 seats in
economy class.
“RwandAir is delighted to partner with SACH and support its good cause
to improve the quality and accessibility of cardiac treatment for
children from developing countries,” said Yvonne Manzi Makolo, the CEO
of RwandAir. She added that, “the social issues that affect the
communities we operate in have always been part of our mission.”
The eight children travelling to Israel were screened and diagnosed last year in Rwanda by a SACH visiting team from Israel at the Kigali Teaching Hospital. The SACH team worked side by side with their Rwandan partners, Dr. Emmanuel Rusingiza Kamanzi and Dr. Joseph Mucumbitsi, to examine 47 children with heart disease.
In the next few weeks the eight children will undergo lifesaving heart treatment at Wolfson Medical Center, and following their treatment they are expected to recover at the SACH’s recovery home alongside children from Tanzania, Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Iraq, Solomon Islands and the Palestinian Authority.
Save a Child’s Heart Executive Director Simon Fisher said; “This new direct flight between Kigali and Tel Aviv will greatly support our ability to save many more young Rwandan lives in this Israeli-Rwandan partnership”.
About RwandAir
From its hub at the heart of Africa at Kigali International Airport, RwandAir is reputed for its excellent on-time performance, customer service and safety, and has one of the youngest fleet on the African continent. RwandAir, an IATA member airline renewed its IOSA certification and has been ISAGO and EASA certified.
With a fleet of twelve aircraft including two wide-body Airbus A330, the airline currently reaches out to twenty-nine (29) destinations across East, Central, West and Southern Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Previously, RwandAir started flights from Kigali to Mumbai, Harare, London (Gatwick) and Brussels as well as Dakar from its second hub in Cotonou. RwandAir also introduced flights to Abidjan, Libreville and Brazzaville from its Cotonou hub. In April, 2018 RwandAir started flights to Abuja in Nigeria and Cape Town has joined its network in May, 2018.
This year, RwandAir started flights to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo effective 17th April, Guangzhou in China from 18th June and Tel Aviv in Israel on 25th June, 2019. Addis Ababa and Luanda will also be added to our expanding network this year. RwandAir also plans to enter the American market with flights to New York. For more information about RwandAir, please visit www.rwandair.com
About Save a Child’s Heart
Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) is an Israeli-based international non-profit organization that has provided care to 5,000 children from 59 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe and South America and trained more than 120 medical professionals from these countries. SACH was granted special consultative status by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (ECOSOC) and was the 2018 recipient of the prestigious United Nations Population Award.
Save a Child’s Heart was founded in 1995 at the Wolfson Medical
center to improve the quality of pediatric cardiac care for children in
developing countries and create centers of competence in these
countries. Save a Child’s Heart is committed to the health and welfare
of all children, regardless of the child’s nationality, religion, color,
gender or financial situation. Save a Child’s Heart is currently
building an international pediatric cardiac center at the Wolfson
Medical Center. This new medical facility will house all of the
infrastructure and equipment needed to perform pediatric heart
surgeries, including all pre and post-operative care, ensuring that Save
a Child’s Heart will be able to continue with its medical mission and
treat even more children, also allowing for better care for local
children treated in the Wolfson
Medical Center.
For more information, please visit www.saveachildsheart.org
Published on: December 3, 2019