Samuel comes from Gicumbi District. An eye condition began when he was four, and by the time he was eight his sight was gone. He started out at Kigogo Primary School and then went to the institute in Kibeho, in Nyaruguru District. From then on, through primary and secondary school, every lesson reached him as raised dots on a page.
His marks tell the story of those years. He scored about 90% in lower primary and fell to 80% in upper primary. He climbed back to between 85 and 89% at Ordinary Level, then reached at least 93% at Advanced Level. His final result of 93.53% made him first in the Languages combination and 11th among all candidates in the country.
He was not the only one from Kibeho with a result to celebrate. The school sent 15 candidates to the senior leaving exams, the first time its students had sat them, and all 15 passed. The top score was not Samuel's. His classmate Niragire Gadi scored 94.27% in History-Geography-Literature, also first nationally in that combination. Nyirabatware Alverie, in the same combination, reached 90.37%.
The school was founded by Sister Rafaela Nałęcz of the Franciscan Sisters Servants of the Cross, a Polish congregation based near Warsaw. That congregation was itself founded in 1918 by a blind woman, Elżbieta Róża Czacka. Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs paid for the building. When the primary section opened in 2009, it was Rwanda's first school for blind children.
By late 2024 it taught 185 pupils, from primary school to upper secondary, and it also takes in children with albinism. Polish, Kenyan and Rwandan sisters teach there alongside lay teachers, and there is a choir, dance lessons and knitting workshops. The adaptive equipment every Braille lesson depends on is expensive and hard to import. Staff say the school relies on donors to pay for it.
Samuel now hopes to study journalism or education at university. In 2024, another Kibeho student, Jean de Dieu Niyonzima, placed fifth nationally in the lower secondary exams. He told reporters he wanted to study journalism and languages.
Children at Kibeho learn to read by touch, and some of them go on to choose careers built on words.