Hello everyone!
It has been quite some time since we made any news.
We gave the Centre Marembo's tailoring and sewing workshop a new paint job and tiling floors, as it definently needed it after over 2 1/2 years of temporary closure.
Right now the sewing workshop is admist in creating products, hopefully ready to be sold during Christmas Bazaar shops and events, but also in other souvenir or gift stores, and from Centre Marembo's own gift shop.
We are excited to share the photos soon once the products are ready to go into the market.
In other additional news, our egg production is still ongoing; we are currently working on new concept ideas to further strengthen Centre Marembo Agro-pastoral project by adding a few more things. Once we can confirm these ideas can be implemented, we will share futher developing story on the farming project.
Hello to all of our kind supporters, we have a couple of new updates Centre Marembo would like to share with you:
Highlighting the ongoing importance on GBV prevention
While gender-based violence (GBV) still persists in the present day, Rwanda is still finding different innovative methods to prevent harmful actions that violates human rights of girls and women. In order to educate the public on this matter and spread awareness, various institutions and organizations organise ways to let the public hear the testimonies of the GBV victims.
On 9th of June 2022, two young mothers who are GBV victims were invited to the Imanzi Radio station to share their testimonies on the GBV in the families; Executive Director of Centre Marembo, Nicolette Nsabimana, and Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Teddy Ruyenzi, were also present during the radio broadcast.
The aim of this broadcast is to bring voice to of the children, young mothers and GBV victims and their stories, and emphasize the importance on a proactive action or method in GBV prevention.
During the interview, Teddy expresses towards the public on the fight against GBV:
"We need concerted efforts by the families in order to eradicate the violence in our communities.”
"....We need to strengthen community awareness, go down to the grassroots, reach to all groups; women, men, couples, children, local leaders and mentors to build a collective bond.’’
We would like to the many radio listeners who listened throughout this important broadcast.
An important note:
Rwanda is experiencing an increase in the local market price, as a response to the global substantial economic instability and stagflation; it has affected majority of various items and services, such as fuel, school fees, food and other basic need items.Combining with the slow economic rate, high unemployment rate and low supply rate, these factors are adding more pressure onto the marginalised and vulnerable groups, having a negative effect on the daily lives of children, girls and teen mothers.
To give an example, fuel costs 1.42 USD per litre/ 5.38 USD per gallon (for gasoline); for diesel, the fuel costs 1.46 USD per litre/ 5.53 USD per gallon. Another is a 20 litre cooking oil, which last month or so costs around 40,000 RWFs (about 38 USD); the same cooking oil is now increase by about 20%, costing almost 50,000 RWFs (about 50 USD). Since the beginning of this year, many goods have experienced a substantial increase in prices over a period of 5-6 months.
Centre Marembo has got some interesting news to share with you!
16 Days of Activism 2021
As of 10th of December 2021, Centre Marembo has joined with Gasabo district residents to carry out activities relating to the 16 Days of Activism. This was an important campaign as voicing out a wake-up call on the subject of gender-based violence (aka GBV) to support victims affected by it and addressing the issues on unwanted pregnancies. The following theme was: “Speak Out! End Gender-Based Violence.”
The Executive Director of Centre Marembo, Nicolette Nsabimana, invited authorities, private sectors and others to encourage young mothers and girls within the public to participate in non-traditional work. The audience also had the chance to listen to the testimonies given by Centre Marembo beneficiaries, who themselves are affected by GBV. Throughout the campaign, the Centre Marembo beneficiaries participated in several radio stations to share their testimonies and spread encouraging messages to bring out the fight against GBV and unwanted pregnancies.
As to mark the closure of the anti-GBV campaign, a walk demonstration was held at Mukuyu Cell, within the Ndera Sector.
A surprise visit!
On 5th March, a group of seven people visited Centre Marembo with a heartwarming surprise as they donated various items, including clothes, food, juice, milk, menstrual pads and so on, to help the young mothers of Centre Marembo. Not only that, but they even paid medical insurances for 20 of the young mothers, including their children. Centre Marembo is truly grateful for this act of kindness and that momentous day will forever engrave in our hearts.
Agro-pastoral project is back!
After 15 months of postponement due to covid-19, we have finally resumed farming activities with the purchase of over 1,065 few-weeks old chicks back in December 2021, to produce eggs in order to fight malnutrition observed in children and young mothers, as well serving as an income-generating activity through selling of the eggs and chicken manure (as organic fertiliser) to the market.
The hens are now 3-4 months old and it will take another month for them to start producing the eggs. The total purchase of the chicks was 1,200,000 RWFS (roughly 1,190 USD, or 900 GBP) and a 10 days supply of chicken feed costs 240,000 RWFS (approx. 175 GBP or 231 USD).
Women’s International Day
On March 8th, Centre Marembo, its partners, friends and young mothers gathered to this day to celebrate and looking at on how women and girls can fight against climate change, as this year's current theme is "Gender equality in fighting against Climate change". Discussions highlighted on how to mitigate its effects and explores on how impoverished women and girls are vulnerable to the climatic change, since their rely on natural resources, mainly agricultural, as an income source when selling farm produce to the market.
Since both covid-19 and the climatic changes added more pressure on increasing inequalities, violence and driving vulnerable people into poverty, thus regressing their progress on their employment, education and well-being.
To mark the end of Women's International Day, the Centre Marembo beneficiaries were invited to participate in the Voice of Girls’ program on Imanzi FM local radio station and received various positive responses and constructive feedback from the audience -who were listening on the radio channel- after sharing their testimonies as a single young mother, the challenging experiences they went through and the solutions to overcome said challenges.
End Note:
Centre Marembo would like to express deepest gratitude to you all for making such an impact on our community. You all are the greatest supporters who believe in our cause and we appreciate following our progress throughout these challenging two years.
As the year 2021 is coming to an end, an exciting idea has finally brought into life as the Byuka Bakobwa Project was announced for its launch during the press conference on September 23rd, at the Nyarugenge District Hall. Important details were covered during the interview and how the project plays its role in the lives of vulnerable young women and girls.
The Byuka Bakobwa roughly translates to “Wake Up, Girls!” to use as a slogan to highlight the issue of gender inequality faced by young women and girls from impoverished backgrounds and/or are victims of GBV when looking to work in the non-traditional jobs (jobs that are usually marked to men). Thanks to L'AMIE and FIT to make this project into a possibility, as this project is a collaboration work between us and our two partners.
Nicolette addresses during the press conference, that the end result of this project will enhance girls’ professional and personal development skills, increasing self-value and confidence, and highlighting the issues of GBV towards the public. Several news media were present, including The New Times, Rwanda Inspirer, Rwanda Broadcasting Agency, Kigali Today, and a few more. Not only that, but Centre Marembo also made in appearance in two radio stations (Isango Star 91.5 FM and Imanzi 105.1 FM), with two of the moto-taxing and tiles and posing paves students as the representatives of the Byuka Bakobwa.
A group of 60 young women were selected, which will be split into two groups of 30 to be trained in motorcycling and in tiles and posing paves for this 14-month long project. The first 4-5 months of the project will focus on the training phase, where by November 28th, 30 students of the moto-taxi training took the provisional driving test at the Kigali Stadium. The classroom not only teaches these young women the technical skills used in motorcycling and paver and tiles training, but the life skills as well, including customer care, communications skills, cooperatives skills, nutrition, sexual reproductive health and family planning.
The remaining months for 2022 will be dedicated on the examination stage, the certification stage (for the completion of the training as well passing their examination) and the formation of cooperatives.
This project is innovative itself in a way for its holistic approach, where not only it creates an opportunity for enrolment into non-traditional workplace, but the activities of this project provided to the beneficiaries are essential to achieve empowerment, getting psychosocial support, healthcare, to bring visibility on the issue of GBV and gender inequality, knowing about sexual reproductive health and their rights, childcare and other basic needs to cover them during the duration of the project.
Brief Summary:
Centre Marembo team would like to thank our partners, supporters and donors for all of your ongoing support and as well on your engagement and comments on our social media –Facebook, Twitter and Instagram- for every post published. Not only are we looking forward to 2022 to mark the beginning of a new year, but also the seeds of the future that will start to bloom and bear the fruits of the next year.
We wish everyone the best of the winter holidays and a happy new year!
Links:
Kigali City was under lockdown from 17th-21st July 2021 due to the reported of increased infection rates of covid-19, despite of the recent change covid-19 measures implemented 2 weeks prior of the lockdown in order to countermeasure it.
The Centre Marembo team (Executive Director, Communications Officer, Social Assistant and the Driver) launched a food and other needs aid distribution -with the proper clearance- in various areas listed below:
A number of 50 young women, teen mothers and their children, young girls, and GBV victims were provided food aid bags, which contains:
Centre Marembo has also covered for safe home accommodation for 48 teen mothers and young girls.
Our team would like to give their sincerest thanks and appreciation for everyone's support and donation into this project. We do plan to further provide Covid-19 relief aids in the near future and hopefully we will also resume our program's activities.
We encourage to our supportive community of donors to share this project's link to bring attention to our work to help vulnerable communities, as they struggle with the dire situation of the pandemic.
Thank you.
Links:
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