Friends Of Rwanda Aid News No. 16. March 2010

It is good to be back in Rwanda: the place has an atmosphere all of its own! Here are the tea workers on their morning commute! And how about this for a hot water system! And here are some decorators at work! The days have flown by out here and I am now coming to the end of my few weeks in Rwanda, and I thought I might be allowed just one newsletter! I spent the first few days in Kigali visiting various Ministries, and on the whole this was amazingly productive. I covered Mineduc (education), Minesante (health) and Minaloc (local government), but not the Ministry of Finance ... I rather like the name they have for that ... it is called Minicofin! As you may have heard, there have been a few little local disturbances ... with dissidents throwing grenades, mainly in Kigali. This was either an attempt to unsettle things before Sarkozy's arrival, or unless the same intention with the forthcoming elections in mind. Either way, the incidents were dealt with firmly, and things seem to have settled down very quickly. Since then it has been the usual diet of feverish activity, frustration and fun. We have taken a walk to the farm. The good news is that there are eighteen fat little piglets being prepared for distribution to the villages, and a newly born heifer calf: the bad news is that half the rabbits have died, and the tomato crop has failed! You rarely win 'em all here. Whilst we were taking stock, the most amazing and alarming thunder storm blew up, and the lightning very nearly pole -axed Neil, who has been in charge here for the last month. It would have been a harsh and unkind decision of the Almighty to have taken him out: he has done a wonderful job! There is good news from Ngwino Nawe!!! First Neil has sourced four brand new wheelchairs which are being funded from the Teddy Hall donations. Here they are: And Jean Claude is doing a very good job with the animals and the vegetable garden. We are creating raised beds for each of the eight houses to enable the children to grow their vegetables. Quite a number of the children are now attending the local school, and we were delighted to learn that the Sector where Ngwino Nawe has been built has been voted the best sector IN THE COUNTRY for the care of disabled children in the community. Now we have a volunteer from VSO staying with us and teaching sign language to the children and teachers (there are over 20 deaf and dumb children). Our progressive house programme continues apace. We have completed a further six houses on Nkombo, and are spreading the good news by building more houses in Gashonga, Nyarusange and Mpinga, all for families living in destitution. This is Therese standing in front of her old house one year ago. And here is the new house! The challenge now, as with all the families we help, is to leave them rather more self-sufficient, and in this case, we are planning to set up Therese's sixteen year old daughter, Pacifique, with a little flour distribution business. With the blessing of Minaloc, we are also experimenting with different materials for our progressive housing, with the aim of reducing cost, increasing efficiency, saving the environment and sourcing local materials. In this respect the tin roofs are not very satisfactory (expensive, not locally sourced, noisy in the rain, and poor insulators), and the walls are not ideal in that they are using an increasingly scarce resource of wood. So we are planning to build one trial house using sand and cement tiles for the roof, and perhaps a little more controversially, earth filled fertiliser bags for the walls. Here is one such house under construction in Burundi! We'll let you know how we get on! Our schools programme is moving ahead apace. We are currently (excuse the pun) bringing electricity to two schools, King's House, Cyato and Nyarusange), , and are saving a good deal of money by using our multi-talented social worker, Jonas, to carry out the work. The nursery school at Bweyeye is very nearly complete, and what an excellent job our faithful Thomas has done: As you know, our aim is to produce "flagship" projects, with good attention to detail, so I know you won't mind me showing you the toilet and washing facilities: There is even a toilet for disabled children. A similar nursery school is being completed on Nkombo Island. Now that we have agreements from Mineduc and the Rwanda Revenue that we are entitled to claim back VAT on all building projects, we are keen to proceed with our more ambitious building programme. This will include adding three classrooms to King's House, Cyato, and effectively create a new school at Mwegera comprising six classrooms, an office and toilets. The plan is for this school to be twinned with Westminster Under School. We also have some exciting plans for the islands of Nkombo and Ishwa. On the latter we are about to build a much needed health centre, which will be run by the local government, and on the former we are hoping to build a vocational training centre on the CFJ model: a Centre de Formation pour des Jeunes providing three year practical, vocational courses in areas such as electricity, plumbing, carpentry and ICT. Finally I thought you might like to know that a number of the staff here have volunteered to run the Kigali half marathon in May for Rwanda Aid: these include Prince, our country manager, Jonas, our Chief Social Worker, Gad, our farm manager, Andrew, a UK volunteer and Amy, a VSO volunteer. They have a page on Justgiving which you might like to visit www.justgiving.com/peacemarathon Prince writes: We all believe strongly in the vision and mission of Rwanda Aid, and are proud to be part of a team which is relieving suffering and helping to move this country forward to a brighter, peaceful and more prosperous future." And with young people like Prince, Jonas and Gad leading the way, you have to be optimistic about the future of Rwanda. With warm good wishes David, and the Rwanda Aid team