LOUISE Goux-Wirth had fantasised about going back to Rwanda all her life.

She had almost no memories of the country where she had been orphaned as a tiny baby, nor of her parents who were killed in the civil war, in 1990.

She couldn't recall the orphanage where she and her brother had lived until they were three and four respectively, when they were adopted by a French couple.

But she felt that part of her identity was missing, and she knew that she had to go back to her homeland to help her to find it.

Louise, whose family moved to Bristol and who now lives in Southampton, spent a year preparing herself to return to Rwanda after graduating from university.

"I went in 2013, following a year of intense preparation," says the 29-year-old, who works in human resources.

"I realised I needed to see the country for myself, to find peace. It was causing a lot of emotional damage in my life."

Louise launched a blog, https://takemetorwanda.wordpress.com, to help her raise the money to pay for her trip, and spent a year in therapy, readying herself for what she knew would be an intense and difficult experience.

Louise went as part of a team of volunteers to an orphanage. She was supposed to be there for three months, but had a breakdown after a month and had to arrange an emergency flight back home.

"Being back in an orphanage was very tricky," she explains.

"I was there with a group of volunteers but I was the only one with such a close backstory to where we were. People asked me a lot of questions and it created a lot of challenges.

"Someone I worked with at an orphanage was convinced that she could help me to find living relatives.

"I explained that I didn't think there were any and that I wasn't ready, but a possible relative showed up and I had a massive panic and had to leave on an emergency flight.

"I'd spent my childhood dreaming of a family member appearing out of nowhere and taking me back to Rwanda, but when it happened it was very traumatising.

"The fantasy and the reality were very different and the reality was much more complicated.

"I don't know if that person was a relative or not," she adds.

"I don't have the emotional space to delve into it now. I realised it wasn't the right time for that."

Happily, since then, Louise has made much more peace with both Rwanda and her own identity.

She has returned to the country five times since that first, difficult visit, to attend the commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi, for her birthday, for pleasure and also to run a half marathon, ahead of a marathon she is doing there in May next year.

She has begun to build up a network of friends and connections in the country and feels that she has some roots of her own there now.

"I used to think that once I went there, everything would click into place for me, but Rwanda is still very foreign to me," she says.

"It feels like home but I can't speak the language, so I can't communicate. I look like the people there but they can sense that I'm not like them."

Louise says that she has always felt she wanted to do something to help her mother country, but had been unsure how to do so.

"I realised that the country is quite alien to me," she says.

"I have a lot of western ideology and privilege, having been adopted. Rather than trying to do something to fix the country myself, I realised it was better to contribute to a charity that's based there."

Louise is a keen runner and through a friend who works in the office of the President of Rwanda, leant about the First Lady's charity, the Imbuto Foundation, and decided to run the Kigali International Peace Marathon in aid of it.

She hopes to raise £1,000, which she says is a large sum in the UK, but even larger in Rwanda, and will help pay towards health, education, youth and social economic programmes in Rwanda.

"I believe education helps both the individual and society to be better," she says.

"I went through my education without having to question if I could afford it, but children there can't afford to go to school, even though the fees are fairly minimal by our standards - around £300 a year."

Louise is also going to pay the fees for a child at school in Byumba, where she was born.

Louise adds that while she knows she will spend her life dealing with the events of her early childhood and their consequences, she now feels largely at peace with herself and her own identity.

"I think this is stuff that you have to go on dealing with, but I've dealt with a lot of it. I feel stronger in myself now and that I can give something back to Rwanda.

"feel much happier now because I have been to Rwanda and I can go back. I have built networks there.

"People used to say that I would go back one day but that felt so vague."

Louise used to think that after her first visit, she would want to live in Rwanda permanently, but now feels she has learnt to balance her life better between the UK and Rwanda, and feels much happier.

"When you've been deprived of something, you think that when you get a taste of it, you'll gorge yourself on it, like a child who has been forbidden chocolate and is given a bar, but that's not how it is for me.

"I used to put huge pressure on myself to go back and speak the language and be part of the culture. But although I've been learning the language, it's very complicated and for me the culture is something you grown up with, with your mother, your aunties, your neighbours teaching you how to cook the food, and so on.

"I've stopped putting pressure on myself to suddenly be the whole thing, and have accepted that I'm a bit different.

"I've also met other Rwandans with similar experiences to me, who left Rwanda at a young age and have had to navigate their identities. It is hard, but I'm getting better at nailing it," she adds.

"I saw the First Lady speak at a women's conference at the High Commission of Rwanda. Her message was simple – highlighting the role us, as young people have in shaping the future of Rwanda: “Reflect on how you will shape yourselves, and your country, into the Rwanda we want, as indeed, the world for that matter”

"She said that Rwanda has a lot of dark history, but that doesn't define the place to the people and that really struck home with me.

"Running Kigali International Peace Marathon for Imbuto Foundation is my contribution. I feel very lucky to be in a position where I can give back and contribute to the future of Rwanda."

* You can contribute to Louise's fundraiser at: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/therwandaiwant and find more about the Imbuto Foundation at imbutofoundation.org