Helping Rwandan Children out of Poverty

In November 2019 a team of seven volunteers from Jersey, one from Bristol and four from Rwanda working at schools in Bugarama, South West Province.

With the generous support of Jersey Overseas Aid, we achieved the following:

• Work was started on a conversion of a six-classroom block at Muko School into twelve classrooms by building a second storey on top of existing classrooms. This project will be completed in March 2020. It’s a challenging piece of work involving strengthening foundations and supporting columns and is being supervised by Djuma, our local project manager. These classrooms will be used to expand senior secondary school opportunities and enable more local young people to access university courses;
• A new kitchen was built for Kibangira School and six classrooms painted. This completes a massive transformation of this school over the past three years, including six new classrooms, toilet block, teachers’ room and renovated classrooms;
• A block of three run down classrooms at Ryankana Primary School were renovated with new doors, windows, plastering and concrete floor. Another three classrooms will be renovated at our next visit later this year.

Our plans for ongoing development in the schools continue later this year. The schools are under huge pressures with numbers as they cope with rising numbers but also government plans to improve and broaden the scope of education opportunities for all.

Jersey Overseas Aid have approved a grant of £41,000 for a new classroom block at Ryankana. This will be Phase 1 of a new two-storey building, including six classrooms and toilets. But we have to find another £41,000 to match this sum so we have our work cut out for us this year. Any assistance will be very gratefully received.