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