Enable 50 Rwandan Mothers to Farm for Profit

Hi everyone, 

We hope you all had a great summer; we know we did. Five students from our chapter spent 9 1/2 weeks in Butare, Rwanda working with our partner and evaluating our Maternal Health Education program (MHEP). This is the sixth year we have sent GWU students on the Grassroots On Site Work, or GROW, program. 

Molly, Maddie, Hannah, Abhi, and Natasha worked with RVCP to understand how MHEP functions and create a plan to improve the sessions in the future. After evaluating the program, RVCP and the GROW team decided to implement a new teaching structure, which included small-group discussions that engaged the women and strengthened their understanding of how to improve their family's health. The GROW team also visited the women from the 2010 cooperative, our first MHEP group, to see where they are now and get their perspective on improvements. They learned that the womens' suggestion aligned with RVCP and the GROW team's evaluation. The womens' greatest need was for better agricultural training to ensure better crop production. With improved crop production, the women will be able to increase their income and purchase their family's health insurance every year. Finding and funding an agricultural specialist for all of the women in the cooperative is our top priority for the 2013-2014 school year. 

In addition, the Huye Health Clinic, which was rebuilt in 2007 after being destroyed by the genocide, expressed the need for a fence around the clinic. This is to prevent livestock from coming into the cllinic and will reduce spread of disease. We have partnered with and supported the Huye Health Clinic since GlobeMed at GWU was founded in 2007, and we will be funding this construction project to better the community in which the women live. 

We can not summarize an entire summer of amazing experiences, so visit our blog for more about GROW 2013: http://writingrwanda.wordpress.com. 

Lots of GlobeMed love, 

Molly and Priya, Co-Presidents

Happy Spring everyone!

The past few months have heralded great developments for both GlobeMed at GWU and the Rwanda Village Concept Project (RVCP). In April, our chapter held a Benefit Brunch at Bistro Bistro in Dupont Circle, featuring a panel of global health professionals that included Dr. Victor Barbiero, Dr. Tamara Henry, Dr. Mary Ellsberg, and Hyacinthe Mushumbamwiza. By welcoming GWU professors, the director of the Global Women's Institute at GWU, and the Coordiator of RVCP, we were able to have a fantastic discussion about maternal and child healthcare from a range of perspectives. 

Six members of GlobeMed at GWU also traveled to GlobeMed's Global Health Summit in Evanston, Illinois. The conference consisted of more than 300 students from around the nation and featured such distinguished panelists as Leymah Gbowee, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Finally, on April 20th, GlobeMed at GWU held its bi-annual 5K Run for Rwanda. While we had been planning on having this event since early on in the semester, we found ourselves in a difficult situation in light of the Boston Marathon Explosions. In an effort to stand in solidarity with those affected in Boston, we donated all of the proceeds from our 5K to the Red Cross, totalling approximately $900. We'd like to extend a special thank you to all of the runners, donors, and contributors who made our donation to the Red Cross possible. 

On an international front, RVCP has been busy at work with implementing the February Maternal Health Education Program sessions, which are scheduled to conclude in late April. By splitting MHEP sessions into two smaller groups of women, the burden placed on the income generating cooperative that graduates enter into will be lessened. In this sense, the cooperative will be better able to incorporate two smaller groups of women rather than one large group of women into the income generating activities and will still be able to turn a profit. The next MHEP session begins in May, when five members of GlobeMed at GWU will journey to Rwanda to help develop the capacity building and monitoring and evaluation techniques of MHEP and RVCP. Be sure to check back for more updates as our exciting summer activities begin in Rwanda!