Teach 30 Rwandan Women to Read, Write & Calculate

Our team is gratefully thanking our donors who continue to support us in our program. Since March 2012, we have taught 20 women how to read, write, and calculate. These women study from Monday to Thursday 1-3Pm. We are about to finish the first term in the end of this May. Students are able to read all alphabets and write simple sentences. Our students’ ages range from 16-55.

Uwajeneza Adelphine, a 23 years old student in our program does selling vegetables on the street. She added that the reason why she decided to join this program is that she was willing to exercise her rights and be independent in her daily life. She told us that she faces challenges in giving the exact balance to her customers, and she is even not able to keep her secrets because she always asks others to read her messages for her. She said:”one day I was appointed to be a leader in our community, and because I knew that I did not know how to read I immediately denied… usually, my young sister is the one who manages my bank account, and I want to study hard and be able to control it myself”.

We are glad that the local authorities have allowed us to use the classroom for free, because they realized that our project is bringing a good change in the welfare of a woman in our community. This was among the big challenges our team had. The donations we got from Global Giving helped us to buy the start up costs for the first term.

To raise the monthly operating cost is still a problem for our team. To date, the major challenge we still have is that teachers are still working unpaid. Another problem is that we still rent some costumes of the dancers from the troop that support in fundraising through its performances.

Our plan this year is to:

• Teach the women about their rights, and encourage them to send their daughters to school, open their own bank account in order to be able to save, to have self esteem and participate in the decision making levels in the community, and have legal marriage so that a child and the mother can have right to access the family property.
• Teach them about business skills in the last term which will help them to raise income in their families.
• Mobilize them to join cooperatives which will help them to combine their efforts with others and have sustainable development.
• Encourage the young students in our program to join public school so that they can be able to continue their studies up to secondary school as soon as they graduate from our program.

What do you think about our plan? Don’t you think that an illiterate woman is exposed to miss different opportunities?

Thank you very much!

All the best,

Baguma Innocent