Friends Of Rwanda Aid News No. 15. January 2010

Here in Rwanda the Team is increasingly busy. In this issue of FORA News some members of the permanent staff will give you a bit of an insight into their work. Prince - Country Manager "Rwanda Aid is committed to support education and have accepted to support Mururu teacher training centre in Rusizi District. An urgent need was for scientific books in English. Trustees and supporters of Rwanda Aid collected and packed thousands of books and over 40 computers in UK from many different schools, which wish to help in the development of Education in Rwanda. Getting these school materials from various areas was not an easy task to do, but I really congratulate them for their commitment to pack and load so much. The frustrating issue was to get the container out from the customs. I think that now Martyn Harris can map roads of Kigali from and to different ministries chasing after the exemption letter of these equipments. At the end we received the container at Mururu School and a team of people unloaded over 250 boxes. Neil, Felicity and Frances then helped to unpack and sort the books into piles. They will be distributed to various schools after being presented to the Director of Education in Rusizi District and later to the Mayor. Although Rwanda Aid has been frustrated much about this the District has appreciated and thank very much what Rwanda Aid is doing for the area." The disabled children's' village - Ngwino Nawe - will be opening its doors to a new term next week. Today we had some brilliant news - a VSO volunteer special needs teacher, who has a great deal of experience with deaf and disabled children, is going to spend four weeks over the next two months working at the village. This will provide invaluable support and training for the staff as well as assistance for the very needy children. Building work on the Nursery School on Nkombo Island has started and the Nursery at Bweyeye has been completed and furniture ordered. This should be ready for the first intake of children in the near future. At Murangi Farm work to repair the Manager's house has been finished and Gad was very pleased to be moving in at last. This has also freed up a room at the farm Training Centre to accommodate more trainees. There is currently a Livestock Training session taking place at the farm. Farmers who complete this will receive visits from the Training Manager - Felicien - to encourage and assess when they have a shed and sufficient fodder to support a goat or pig. These animals will then be given on the understanding that the first female offspring will be handed on to someone else in the programme. Jonas - Welfare Officer "On Nkombo Island the six new progressive houses are nearly finished. They have rammed earth stoves, compost toilets, water tanks and will have solar lights. I am also visiting people in many parishes who have been given goats to make sure they are passing on the first female offspring. Now we are developing a Microfinance Programme to give interest free loans that empower poor people, associations and groups to create sustainable businesses or projects that support and stimulate the local market and are beneficial to the local community. Some really good applications have been received such as buying a fishing net or materials for making shoes. As part of the Microfinance Programme we will run workshops to train some people to make rammed earth fuel-efficient stoves and bio-fuel briquettes. As a first step Camille and Theophile - with Alistair, a UK volunteer - are going to trial a new design of earth stove. We hope this design will then be used in the workshops and the people trained will be assessed for loans to help get new businesses started." Kalisa - Works Manager and Driver "In medical Outreach we visit 10 sites, such as Gisuma, Nyakarenzo and Mpinga. We used to go to Banda but had to stop because the road is very, very bad. When it has been repaired we shall go back as the people there need the programme very much. I have seen how much people are improving in health since we first started the Outreach and how important this work is. There are some Batwa people who lived in very bad conditions and just by gathering wood around to sell in the markets. They have no land to grow crops. We have built them some new houses and asked them what else they could do. They suggested that they could have a sewing machine to sew and earn money to improve their way of living. Six of the group have been in sewing training and will receive microfinance for machines. Many of the older people in the group cannot read or write, but the children now go to school." Frances - visiting craft instigator! "14 months since I was last here and I am amazed with the quality of the work that is now being produced by groups of women working around their single tables in mud floored huts or amongst the children at Ngwino Nawe, where they help sorting the coloured beads. The new line of chunky beads are beautifully made and very stylish, though there is a shortage of calendars and other magazine type papers from which the beads are made. It is important that these women try to sell their goods locally as well as through Rwanda Aid. I am now going back to France to try and sell to some shops in my area but also to some of the local unemployed who could sell in the markets there." At the moment, Jonas, Felicien and Jean Claude (building manager) share the use of a motorbike to get around to the rural villages and farms. This is actually a lot more practical than trying to get along steep, muddy, narrow, rough tracks in remote areas in a 4 wheel drive vehicle - as I discovered one rainy day near Nyarusange…. There was definitely no going back, so we had to recruit about 12 people to help push the car up the hill and round the corner to level ground. On the subject of roads - the track up to Murangi farm was upgraded last year - by Ferdinand and Martyn. Sadly this takes a bit of the challenge out of the drive but is eminently more practical….. Ditches and gullies were dug to divert streams away from the middle of the track, sturdy bridges were built and parts of the track were graded. Nothing stays the same for long under Rwandan rain, so this needs regular maintenance. Today we helped in a work party as part of Umaganda - the monthly community workday. Rwanda Aid now supports 14 community tree nurseries - each distributing around 20,000 seedlings a year - vital for people struggling to make a living on small plots of land. This Tree Nursery Project, together with the farming training, is one of the projects closest to my heart so I hope you will indulge me while I tell you about it. The trees help to provide the means for people to become more self sufficient through sales of their products - timber, firewood and fruit - as well as soil improvement, better crops and health. The planting of trees also contributes to mitigation of climate change and is very important in reducing soil erosion. In Rwanda, over 90% of the population live by subsistence agriculture and face numerous problems, including: very steep slopes, heavy rainfall, poor soil fertility and small farm plots. The tree nurseries are requested by community members, who then provide the manual work in building the tree nurseries, transport of manure, transplanting seedlings, watering and keeping an eye on seedlings as they grow. Training and advice is given by the Rural Development Interdiocesan Service staff, who use our funds to purchase materials such as transplanting pots, manure, watering cans and seeds. Tree seedlings are distributed free of charge to those who help work in the nurseries as well as other needy people in the community. The trees are planted on farmer's smallholdings and community woodlots. Here are a couple of examples: Bweyeye lies in the rain shadow of the Burundi Mountains. It is a six-hour walk to the nearest road/bus, through the Nyungwe Rain Forest Reserve that cuts it off from the rest of Rwanda. The people suffer from malnutrition as well as inadequate housing and clothing. Timber trees are grown for improved housing construction. Fruit trees provide benefit to diet and income. Fuelwood will discourage illegal felling in the Reserve. Ntendezi - here a marginalized ethnic group of Twa people are involved in the work of the tree nursery. They have previously suffered from social exclusion, lack of food and little education. The work has raised their status in society and provided resources with which to improve their diets and gain an income. Uwizeyimana Ferdinand (right) has been working at the tree nursery in Kamembe for some years. He is pictured with a grevillea robusta tree that he planted for timber four years ago. Ferdinand fled to the Congo during the genocide and returned, hungry and poor, with his wife and three children in 1996. He worked hard on his own and other people's land, to grow food and make sure his family would not be hungry again. Because of the amount of work he has put into the nursery he has received large numbers of seedlings over the last few years - calliandra (N fixing, for fodder and soil conservation), casuarina (timber), eucalyptus (planted in a woodlot for firewood and timber) and avocado (food and income). Ferdinand has also planted quite a few grevillea trees around his fields - on the edges of terraces to give stability and shade. His crops include elephant grass for fodder, maize, bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, beans, matoke (green bananas - plantain), aubergines and tomatoes. Ferdinand has been able to sell eucalyptus to buy a cow. This in turn has produced manure for the fields and increased crop yields. He has also been able to buy some extra land, a door, windows and chairs for his house, and pay school fees for his son, Eric - all with proceeds from the eucalyptus from the tree nursery…… So you can see what a difference the nurseries can make to people's lives. With best wishes from Ali and all the Team at Munezero House, Kamembe, Rwanda