Building Two Classrooms for 700 Rwandan Children

Global Giving Update

It’s been an eventful couple of months in Ntenyo. The New Year brought with it the end of the 2011 P6-ers (the oldest students) time at the primary school. Overall the students scored second in the district on their end examination out of 24 schools in Ruhango district. A huge achievement considering the school was in threat of being shut down nearly 4 years ago.

Mukeshimana Delphine was awarded a full scholarship by Sanejo to attend boarding school at Nyakabanda Secondary School in Muhanga District. Sanejo’s Secondary School Scholarships are awarded annually to the girl and boy who score high enough on their end examination to be offered a spot at a boarding school within the country. Students who pass the exam but do not make the cut-off for boarding school are now attending high school in Ruhango District, a 30-45min walk from Ntenyo.

At the end of last year, Sanejo also began a young professionals program dedicated to training young professionals from cities and rural communities in Rwanda about community development. The program began with Sanejo’s co-founder, David Mwambari, taking a group of 20 young professionals to the Ntenyo community for a day of Umuganda (community service) and thematic discussion sessions. The breakout sessions were focused on Teaching, Small Business Development and Community Infrastructure.

The Small Business group was primarily composed of the skilled laborers that have constructed the new primary classrooms over the last two summers. They shared their stories about the investments they had been able to make with the income from the Ntenyo school project and the effect it has had on their livelihoods. Onesphore, for example, was able to save enough money to buy a cow that produces more milk than his previous cow. He is now able to sell more milk at the market and hopes to use the profits to buy an additional cow for his family.

Gasigwa used his savings from working on the new classrooms to purchase a camera and is now known as the community photographer. He used the proceeds from his photographs to upgrade to a digital camera and now has a shop in town with a printer and running electricity. The latter also allows community members to charge their mobile phones for a small price, helping both Gasigwa and the community.

The young professionals left Ntenyo at the end of the day inspired by the perseverance of the Ntenyo community members, pledging to implement similar programs in their own villages. Sanejo is working with its partners in Rwanda to grow this young professionals program and will be running more trainings throughout the year.

And last but not least, the dates for the YGAP volunteer program are set! From November 2 – 17^th, 2012, Sanejo and YGAP will be working with the Ntenyo community to build four additional classrooms. The focus of this year’s volunteer program will be on creating sports activities and hygiene workshops for the Ntenyo students during their winter holiday.