Empower Rwandan women to be community educators

Dear friends of Paper Crown Rwanda,

I hope this message finds you well. My name is Gisèle Umutoniwase, and I am honored to serve as the new Executive Director at Paper Crown Rwanda. I am delighted to share with you some exciting updates from the field over the past few months.

1.Youth Advisory committee (YAC) - Unleashing the Power of Diverse Youth

 I am pleased to announce the successful establishment of our vibrant and diverse Youth Advisory Committee (YAC). This committee comprises fifteen enthusiastic and diverse young individuals who are committed to finding solutions to the challenges faced by young people in their communities. The YAC will act as a platform for sharing the valuable knowledge and insights of young people, addressing the most crucial issues they encounter. Their guidance will be instrumental in shaping the best approaches for our programs. To ensure inclusivity, we collaborated with partners representing youth with diverse backgrounds, including those with disabilities and from the LGBTQIA+ community.

2.My Voice, My Power - Empowering Youth activists in Kayonza

 We have also completed a cycle of our flagship program, My Voice, My Power (MVMP), in Kayonza, impacting the lives of hundreds of individuals directly. MVMP is designed to empower youth as community activists by providing them with capacity-building workshops on gender, GBV (Gender-Based Violence), SRHR (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights), and human rights. Moreover, we support youth clubs in organizing their own advocacy events within their communities. As always, the program successfully empowered young girls in Kayonza to find their voices, promoting positive attitudes toward consent, and the use of contraceptives.

3.Strengthening Impact - Engaging our Board for Growth

 In the past quarter, PCR has taken significant steps to strengthen the organization's capacity for growth. We have initiated a board engagement strategy with the assistance of a member from our global advocacy committee. This strategy aims to enhance communication and engagement with the PCR board, bridging any skills gaps within the organization and fostering collaboration towards our major organizational goals.

4.Growing Together - Expanding Paper Crown's Team

 On the personal front, Paper Crown has expanded its team, welcoming an Executive Director (myself), a communications officer, and a finance & operations officer. With a passionate and committed team of five, we are thrilled about the organization's potential for future growth.

5.Amplifying Impact - Taking Up Spaces and Expanding Our Network

 Furthermore, the Paper Crown Team has been actively engaging in various events and conferences to expand our network and promote our mission. For instance, Clementine, our programs and partnerships representative, spoke at the Women Deliver 2023 Conference on the theme "Gender Equality Now: Role of Young People in Transforming Masculinities." Drawing insights from our flagship program MVMP, she highlighted the significance of youth leadership in promoting gender equality and transforming traditional notions of masculinity. Additionally, we participated in an exhibition booth on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, showcasing our approach and sharing our success stories. We also attended the annual meeting of the Segal Family Foundation, where we connected with like-minded organizations and potential supporters of our work.

6.Success Story - Empowering Rwandan Women as Community Educators

I am thrilled to share a success story with you. Thanks to your generous donations to our project, "Empower Rwandan Women to be Community Educators," we have been able to invest in building the capacity of future educators to lead our gender transformative projects, including MVMP. As a result, we now have our first community educator, Rahmat Umuhoza, as part of the PCR staff. Rahmat is a skilled communications expert and a talented gender trainer, and she has been actively involved in the community educators' project for over 12 months. She is now ready to contribute to PCR's work as a gender trainer/educator, project lead, and communications support. Furthermore, she will assist the lead community educator in identifying and training other promising community educators. Rahmat's success is a perfect example of the positive outcomes we anticipated from this project. With your continued support, we aim to empower more young women as community educators, further strengthening our organization's capacity to deliver transformative projects and programs.

Uniting for Change - Continue supporting our work in Rwanda

 The work we do in Rwanda is critical, as violence against girls and women continues to threaten their full enjoyment of rights. We are immensely grateful for your ongoing support, which enables us to carry out our mission. We look forward to keeping you updated on our journey as we strive to build a sustainable feminist movement across Rwanda and continue educating and empowering youth on the ground.

Thank you once again for your invaluable support.

Warm regards,

Gisèle Umutoniwase

Executive Director, Paper Crown Rwanda

Dear friends of Paper Crown Rwanda, 

It’s Clementine, the Head of Programs and Partnerships at Paper Crown Rwanda (PCR). There is so much excitement happening and I’m so thrilled to be sharing our news with you. Here are a few highlights to give you some insight into what’s been going on over the past 6 months!

- PCR Hosted an incredible event in support of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign where we focused on how using an intersectional approach in gender programming can help increase the rights for girls and women with disabilities. 40 participants attended - representing both international and local NGOs that work with girls and women in Rwanda - who had the opportunity to:

a. learn how gender, ability, age, class, etc. all intersect to impact SRHR services and information for girls with disabilities

b. dissect and discuss their own internal biases towards people with disabilities, and how that can lead to further discrimination

c. hear directly from the experiences and voices of girls and women with disabilities, and what equity looks like from their perspectives

- We completed a cycle of our flagship program, My Voice, My Power (MVMP), directly impacting hundreds of people, and starting a new six-month cycle of our My Voice, My Power project. MVMP aims to empower youth to become community advocates through capacity building around gender, GBV, SRHR, human rights, etc. and we support youth clubs in creating their own advocacy events in their communities. One key highlight that we saw at the end of this project is that all girls (100%) reported that they can say “no” to a boyfriend in case they feel uncomfortable, compared to just 46% at the beginning of the project.

- We have started another cycle of MVMP, and although we are only just beginning the project, we’ve been finding a lot of myths around gender, sex, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and masculinity existing amongst the participants. For example, one boy was resistant to the idea that women can lead, and believed that it is in their DNA as men to be leaders of the household. Others believed that having sex while standing could not result in pregnancy, or believed that sex cured pimples. On the girls side, most were unaware that a constitution of rights exists in Rwanda, and believed that boys have more knowledge when it comes to sex, and due to this belief, felt that they were being manipulated. We are working with these youth to transform the negative and harmful ideas and norms through participatory and interactive sessions with community educators.

- We completed our Annual Report that you can check-out on our website! 

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Thanks to your kind donations towards our newest project, “Empower Rwandan women to be community educators” we have been able to dedicate time, energy, and resources towards building the capacity of future educators so that they are able to lead our gender transformative projects, such as MVMP, on their own. Our lead educator has been working with our new trainers to ensure that these young women are fully prepared to support youth as they embark on a journey of change. This training allows PCR to expand programming and more sustainably contribute towards transforming harmful gender norms in Rwanda! We are so grateful for your donations, and believe that we can hit our fundraising goal soon so that we can continue to bring other women on board. 

The work that we do is critical in Rwanda as violence against girls and women continues to rise in our region. We would not be able to continue without your support, so thank you. I am looking forward to our next update as we work to build a sustainable feminist movement across Rwanda and continue educating youth on the ground.

Thanks again and talk soon!

-  Clementine

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Links:

• Website