23-year-old father tells his 24 children to 'study hard'

29 April 2014 - 12:37 By TimesLIVE
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Jean Claude Nkusi gives his 24 children a few words of wisdom ahead of Rwanda College of Education exams: "Study hard everyone," he says.

But none of his "children" share his DNA.

According to CNN.com, the only thing linking Nkusi to his children is that they're all ethnic Rwandan Tutsis who lost their families in the 1994 genocide that killed 800,000 people.

"Artificial families" to help young genocide survivors cope were initiated by Association for Student Genocide Survivors (AERG), which was founded by 12 University of Rwanda students in 1996.

They have expanded to 43,397 university and high school students from across Rwanda.

AERG groups families from members within the same secondary school or university, after which the newly-formed family democratically elect a willing father and mother from among their ranks.

Though they don't all live together, they do help each other out financially and attempt to pool their resources.

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