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