Counting down the days.

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself."

- Galileo

Hey there! Better yet, muraho! Zach here. As you might have read in the post before, I will be volunteering with Ioana and all the other amazing volunteers at N4A. We are leaving in less than a week and things are getting pretty hectic here! So far Sophie and everyone else at N4A has been super helpful in getting us ready for the trip. We're hoping to bring a suitcase full of donations and another full of sun tan lotion, bugspray and maybe some clothes too. The strangest part about preparing for our trip was putting away most of my stuff and saying to myself "I'll have no use for that in Rwanda." Most of my life simply has no place in Kigali and will be in storage for the next 3 months.

So again, I just graduate from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, USA with a degree in Chemical Engineering (I just found out that the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology does not have a Chemical Engineering Department, we'll see about that). I also studied economic, environmental sustainability topics during my time there. While I do play a few instruments and took a few vocal classes, I would barely call myself a musician. However, I will be bringing my acoustic guitar for Amy Stead and David Wald, who are setting up a music school! Should be really exciting and I hope to be a part of it.

So what else am I doing? Well, teaching for short. But since I can't teach the entire English language to someone in such a short amount of time, I like the term empowering, which is exactly what N4A does. More children are attending school in Rwanda than at any other time in the country's history. Female students in particular are dramatically increasing in numbers, so it is a very exciting time of progress and development for the country. (Fun Fact: Rwandan's parliament became the first in the world to contain a majority of women - 56%!) N4A helps Rwandans help themselves, and as Galileo put it, N4A helps the Rwandans find it within themselves. It could be a budding entrepeneur, engineer, or perhaps an artist or a musician. Thus I hope to contribute my english, scientific and financial knowledge in order to help the Rwadans find their "it" within themselves.

On a different note, while preparing for Rwanda, Ioana and I watched the chilling Beyond the Gates (also titled Shooting Dogs, a better title in our opinion) and Sometimes in April. The latter demonstrated life after the genocide as the people of Rwanda rebuilt their lives with tremendous energy and courage. In the movie the protagonist's own brother is charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with crimes against humanity. It is the process of reconciliation between the killers and the relatives of those who were killed that accounts for the most interesting part of the plot.

If you feel like watching a movie about the Rwandan genocide not focusing on the Rwandans themselves, then look no further than Beyond the Gates. The movie stands as a stark example of complete abandonement by the Western world. Over 2,500 refugees have fled to a Church/schoolyard under protection by a Belgian UN force. The area is run by a priest and idealistic-to-the-point-of-naive young English teacher named Chris (hmm... sound familiar? *cough cough*). Six days after the fateful April day, the UN decides to withdraw from the compound leaving the refugees to be massacred. Most importantly, this scenario is not limited to the situation described in the movie. As the number of UN soldiers decreased from 2500 to 250, numerous places of refuge across Rwanda were left unprotected from the interahamwe waiting outside.

For a different vantage point or more information on the genocide, you can watch the documentary Ghosts of Rwanda. The relevent scene to the discussion above starts at 3:30:

Well that's about it for now. Soon we'll be able to update you on what we're doing in Kigali. Until then, muramukeho!

-- Zach

Greetings from Chicago!

Zach and I will be arriving in Kigali, Rwanda on July 8th to begin our volunteer work for N4A so we were hoping to share some of our pre-travel ideas, thoughts and aspirations. Rwanda has been on our minds for a long time, but before we plunge into realizations of how much/little we know, we thought we should introduce ourselves...

I - Ioana - am a senior at the University of Chicago, with a major in international studies and a minor in human rights. I was born and raised in Bulgaria (hence the strange name - its pronounced yo-ahn-ah), but I spent my last two years of high school in Washington DC. It's hard for me to explain where my passion for "human rights" came from, as I started volunteering at psychiatric hospitals, and shelters for victims of domestic violence and trafficking, when I was still in Bulgaria. I have interned for a few organizations since, and taken multiple classes on issues ranging from "the practices of othering" to "politics of mass incarceration" and "contemporary abuses in South Asia", but I have always felt a need to get my feet on the ground. With the help of a grant I received from my University to do humanitarian work this summer, I found N4A and now I am hoping to help with a reconciliation through art and photography project in Rwanda.

Zach just graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in chemical engineering. He is from the Chicago-area. He has experience with business, economics and entrepreneurship but he has also been very interested in sustainability, energy use and a variety of environmental issues. He is very resourceful and a lot smarter than me in any sort of practical sense. So we hope to balance each other pretty well and give our best to N4A and Rwanda.

So far except for getting the usual vaccinations and best wishes from friends and family, we've read a few books - We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with our Families, Bearing Witness to Atrocity: That the World May Know, Shake Hands with the Devil - and seen a few movies - Hotel Rwanda, Sometimes in April, Beyond the Gates, but it's the ideas that matter. And like with all real reflections, it's hard to give them a beginning, or an end...
- Ioana

Teaching at the Learning Centre - Romaric Jenssen

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Here is a small description of a normal day of teaching at the Learning Centre where about 60 students come to learn English, business and computer skills. I’m doing a masters degree at a French business school, and so I taught business and computer skills to those students during 3 months.

9:00 AM It’s time for school! Today is a big day as I teach business for two hours in the morning and IT for three hours in the afternoon. Fortunately the students are keen and interested to learn and work.

Today we will talk about running a successful business and to understand how a company works. I use examples of small businesses, such as a local bakery like the one we can see in the street when we come to Solace!, as talking about running a huge multinational firms not very appropriate for students who are becoming acquainted with basic business concepts. The students seem to be very interested in this topic, and they participate a lot by answering questions I ask, thanks to Eric and Françoise who translate in Kinyarwanda.

So this morning we learned how to set up a small bakery, buying some bread from a baker and selling it in a small shop. We also talked about how the bakery can be developed with a brand name displayed at the front of the shop in order to attract people to buy that special bread! Of course, I stressed the importance of having to make sure the financial situation is well managed, organised and recorded. Discussing these examples is a good way to define the different departments that exist in the company: the directors, the financial department, the Human Resources department, the marketing department and the sales department. At the end of the session, we now know basic information about how a company works and how to start a very small one. Everyone seems interested and even after already two hours working they still ask many questions!

After our lunch break I begin the computer class in the afternoon.

1 PM It’s now time to start our computer session. As I’m with a group of students who have never used a computer before, I start with the very basics: what is a computer? How does the mouse work and what does it do? And how can I write on the paper that is on my screen?

By the end of this session students should be able to open Microsoft Power Point and add their first object on the page. Not all the students are at the same level of ability, as there are some complete beginners and some who know a little bit about IT. Tomorrow I will teach another group about making their first Power Point presentation by organizing their ideas and typing them onto the slide. Of course all this work couldn’t be possible without the great help of Eric and Françoise who translate, but also Moses who organises the class and the students!

When I leave the LC I’m tired as it is a long day, but I’m happy because the students are improving and this keeps me very motivated to continue with my classes.

Those three months teaching at the LC were very exciting - the students were very nice, the ambiance was wonderful and the LC that N4A has developed is fantastic!

Romaric

Women Developing Rwanda

Fifteen female students at the Learning Centre have come together to form Women Developing Rwanda, a women's empowerment group. The group members have chosen aims for the organization.

Women Developing Rwanda (WDR) will:

• look for solutions to discrimination against women in Rwanda,
• help women to continue to improve their lives,
• encourage group members to choose one thing that is important to them (their career, their studies, their families, etc.) and help them develop these things in their lives, and
• connect with a group of women abroad to share ideas and learn from others.
  

As a facilitator for this group I have had the privilege of getting to know wonderful women of different ages, backgrounds and goals. The group members are excited to work together to encourage each other. We have all set personal and professional goals and made strategic plans to reach those goals. I will keep this blog updated as we move toward some of those goals, both as a group and individually.

Stacey

First post!

Greetings from Kigali! Sophie, Stacey and I have arrived safely in Kigali and have spent our first day together in town aclimatising and brainstorming some new ideas for teaching this month. It is wonderful to be back in Rwanda again - the red earth and the rich smell unique to this country makes me feel instantly at home. I am ridiculously excited about our projects this year and really looking forward to working with all our volunteers, who I hope will be challenged and enlightened by the teaching in which they will participate.

Being a bit of a technophobe, but keen to learn!, I am also extremely overexcited that I am the first blogger on our N4A blog - I invite you all to share you pre-travel thoughts and feelings, it would be fantastic if we can all contribute to this blog, it'll be a great way to record the volunteering and quite fun too! Looking forward to seeing all our vols soon. Roz