Little by Little For Vocational Education

Updating you on the progress in the Cyaruzinge community is complicated only because so much advancement is made every day. Your donations supply the support which makes it possible for the Batwa to move forward in their daily lives.

Because the Vocational Education program that you have generously supported has been so successful in the village, the Nader Sector has offered ten scholarships to the Cyaruzinge community. These ten adolescents now have the opportunity for vocational training. A joyous time for the community.

Your donations to the soccer campaign have enabled the children to participate in sporting events.  This increases their self-esteem and helps them succeed. The opportunity to be on a ‘football’ team motivates the children to be healthy and do well in school.

Mr. Yuya, a Japanese architect, is working with us to develop the drawings of the plans for the Early Childhood Development Center and is traveling to Rwanda in May. Edward and Perrilee will be joining Yuya to work through the decisions on plans and talk with contractors and the Rwanda government to move the project forward.

The fundraiser to build the Multipurpose Meeting Room is a success. The fundraiser provided enough to build and furnish the room to accommodate the different needs for the advancement in the activities desired and needed to move the security and productivity forward. 

Having this room will provide an appropriate setting for business meetings, health education, and clinic activities, clubs and music activities, and education training.

A government nurse came to the Irerero Nursery School and administrated to the five and six-year-old children their polio vaccines. The parents are so happy to have their children treated equally to the other children in Rwanda.

Micro-loans are showing great signs of success. The Barber and the Beauticians that have completed their training have bonded together to enhance the hair shop by covering the concrete walls with white paint, adding a colorful cloth drop ceiling, floor covering, comfortable beautician chairs for the clients, and a hair washing station. This will bring in the people from the neighborhood surrounding the village. 

The brick makers are patiently waiting for the rain to stop so they can start making bricks. The farmers are glad the rainy season continues as the garden is doing well.

The Grass Collectors are tracking their orders and are ready to increase their business. Keeping a ledger of money invested, expenses and money earned. Showing they know how to operate a business.

More business opportunities for micro-loans are in review, some of the business plans might not work and the PSA team is encouraging revision of the plans to maximize the benefit of the loans. We prioritize the businesses that employ workers from the village.

The three to six-year-olds are being fed every school day from the porridge kitchen. The Nader Sector was pleased to find the nutrition program so successful and feeding so many children.  The Sector is now bringing milk regularly, the cooks are adding milk to the porridge. 

The Village leadership and PSA are helping parents that can’t afford school fees, including the mandatory lunch fee that has to be paid for the primary school students to attend school.

Children are attending school and having a nourishing lunch. The result is their health is improving. Because they are not hungry the children have the energy to participate in hopeful and fun activities. The other family members have more food to eat at home, this allows the young adults to eat more. The new government mandatory lunch program for children attending primary school is working. Children are getting fed a healthy lunch, which leads to more Cyaruzinge Pygmy children attending school.

A group of young adult villagers is now active enough to walk to church services where they are dancing and singing. This interaction with the community at large is raising the social standing and increasing the positive sentiments towards the formerly marginalized community. 

Great progress has been made over the last two years through the Covid-19 Pandemic. Because of your generosity the People of Cyaruzinge have been able to eat. Thank You for your help in securing food through this time. Now the corn and beans are growing well and there is much hope of a large harvest. 

Links:

• Young Women Dancing at Church

With the successes and advancements the young people have made in welding, brick making, beautician and sewing many more young people are asking to join in Vocational education, going on to apprenticeships and internships.  Mugabo has finished his Welding apprenticeship and has been offered a position with a large manufacturer. In a photo below in the January Newsletter it shows him making metal windows. 

Hairstyling is in much demand and the women who have completed their trade school and internships are busy with customers creating hair designs. Braiding is very popular as the women look very sharp and professional with their new hairdos. 

The seamstresses have advanced and are making garments. PSA asked them to make uniforms for the Soccer team a paying job for them and the government of Rwanda has lifted the restrictions on sports. So the teams will soon be playing in competitions. In the newsletter you will see the project of blue uniforms being made. 

The Rwandan government is encouraging women to try out for trade school professions that have been traditional male jobs. Claudine has been accepted into one of these classes. 

One of the young women who attended seamstress training and the two young men in vocational training to become welders have finished their school training and have now been placed in internships, securing their training to employment. All of this has been made possible by the generous gifts of the PSA donors. We also have a new vocational student for seamstresses training who started last week.  

68 Cyaruzinge children, age 7 to 12, are attending primary school. Rwanda has a new requirement for school children. The fee to feed them lunch has to be paid quarterly for them to attend. This is a good requirement, but many of the families do not have the money. PSA has agreed to subsidize the families who don’t have the funds. This will ensure the children will be fed and go to school, a double win.

Cyaruzinge also has three students in 9 Program (High School), two girls and one boy. PSA donors have supported these children. Thank You, these children are the near future of the community. 

Because of your donations, we are able to advance the help to educate the children and young adults in the Cyaruzinge. 

Bampire, now a young woman in the Cyaruzinge Village, Graduated from high school and went on to business school training. A PSA donor believed that education of one would change the poverty of the Batwa community. Bampire is now back in the community using the education she achieved. She is now the woman in charge of the newly built kitchen, using her skills to keep financial records and to operate the complicated feeding of 105 Irerero preschool children and the neediest of the primary school children. 

Feeding over 100 people is a big undertaking. The two cooks purchase the supplies needed to feed portage before school every day. They are busy preparing the porridge, feeding the preschoolers, and cleaning up afterward. These daily tasks include keeping the exterior of the kitchen tidy for ongoing drop-in government officials looking to create a similar government program for the many malnourished Rwandan preschool-aged children. Thank You to all of you PSA donors who funded the build a kitchen project.

In Kigali, Rwanda much of the summer of 2021 had strict lock-down rules, due to COVID-19. These mandates were very difficult for the Cyaruzinge community. Thanks to all of you who were able to contribute to providing food for the Cyaruzinge community. Things are much better now because they were fed during the pre vaccine’s arriving in Kigali struggles. People are back to work, the children are going to school. 

The land that has been purchased for the building of the Cultural and basic Education has been planted in beans and cassava (yucca) as it waits for the next steps in the building. The old women in the village took on the cultivation of the ground, PSA gave them chicken manure, as it has fewer insects embedded in it that will damage the crops. Thank you donators for supplying the cost of manure and seeds.    

One of the young women who attended seamstress training and the two young men in vocational training to become welders have finished their school training and have now been placed in internships, securing their training to employment. All of this has been made possible by the generous gifts of the PSA donors. We also have a new vocational student for seamstresses training who started last week.  

68 Cyaruzinge children, age 7 to 12, are attending primary school. Rwanda has a new requirement for school children. The fee to feed them lunch has to be paid quarterly for them to attend. This is a good requirement, but many of the families do not have the money. PSA has agreed to subsidize the families who don’t have the funds. This will ensure the children will be fed and go to school, a double win.

Cyaruzinge also has three students in 9 Program (High School), two girls and one boy. PSA donors have supported these children. Thank You, these children are the near future of the community.