Little by Little For Vocational Education

Vocational education continues. The young women who completed the hairdressing internship can support themselves working in the Kigali salon. They also are teaching other women the basics at the salon in the Cyaruzinge village. The sewing internships are working well, they are being taught more skills in cutting out patterns and sewing a larger number of clothing pieces. 

Computer training for the Irerero teachers is taught in the evenings. Cartoons are shown to the children two evenings a week in the preschool, music, and dance are enjoyed one or two nights a week by the children and young teens. Everyone is looking forward to the new multi-purpose room being completed so more than one activity can be offered every day. Giving the community opportunities for growth, classes, and fun entertainment in the evenings. This is very exciting to the community, as they are happy when they dance and sing, and they do music because they are happy, creating more social cohesiveness.

The teachers will divide the children into three groups to have more manageable numbers of preschoolers. 130 children are now attending Irerero, and the multipurpose building will allow the community to have space to move forward in feeding the 35 children who are 6-month-olds to 3-year-old, adding on to the duties of the Kitchen staff who are feeding the children a nutritional meal every school day.

Large accomplishments have happened recently.  The Multipurpose building is being built, expecting to move in before the first of 2023. The regulations for building in Rwanda changed this year, making it a long process getting the building permit, finally, the community has been able to build. The bricks are installed, the metal roof is on and the internal furnishings will hopefully be done in December.  PSA will be taking part in GlobalGiving on Giving Tuesday, November 29.   

SHARE, a monthly ongoing program has begun in the village teaching family planning to teen mothers and young women. 

Soccer continues on Saturdays. The children have received new uniforms and soccer balls so they can compete in the local events.

Links:

• Where the Batwa are today at the Cyaruzinge Village.

PSA is happy to provide this report on all our projects about what is happening. Most of the projects are ongoing.  The major goal is to bring health and education so the people can choose their personal and collective way of living.

 Vocational Education is ongoing; the task ahead of us is basic as there are many young people wanting to attend classes to secure a craft. As the number of successes of graduates of training programs steadily increases, the trade schools are more welcoming of the Batwa. As the number of admitted students increases, the funding and scholarships increase from government and private donors.

Much like in the USA, many trades and professions require licensing that requires a minimum amount of training and experience.  This is the case for welders, masons, and hair care providers.  Two women who finished the classes on hair care have started their internship working in a salon where they can be certified; this will increase their ability to make a fair wage. Internship  

The Irerero Nursery School is two classrooms and an office/storage room.  The building is less than 1000 square feet with over a hundred 3-6-year-olds attending.  The main classroom is used for many business and cultural meetings and classes after regular school hours.

Our newest project is building a multi-purpose room located next to the main Irerero classroom and be used as a nursery school classroom in the mornings.  In the afternoons and evenings, it will be used for meetings and other activities, like music and dance rehearsals.  The bricks are made, have dried in the sun, the sector has approved the plans and the community is prepared to build the room this month.  

We have already built the porridge kitchen near the Irerero school, and it is working out very well.  The children aged three through six have been fed a porridge meal every school day since September.  We have now added thirty-four children aged six months to three years to the group being fed. This is a very exciting addition, and the mothers are so happy!  Feeding children is a very rewarding ongoing project.

The 75 books from the collection done in Seattle for nursery school children were greeted with children picking a book and going to the classroom to enjoy sitting and sharing.

There is a great need to build an Early Childhood Development Center.  When we started the ask, we thought we would eventually grow to have 100 students. The community and the architect are reassessing the number of students the facility will support.  In June a team of three volunteers went to Cyaruzinge to move forward with the plans for the Early Childhood Development and Cultural Center: Yuya the architect from Japan, and Eddy, a dedicated Rwandan PSA member from the beginning of PSA, to help with the culture and language, and Perrilee a USA team member, working with Claude the Field Manager for HDI and PSA.  Many lessons were learned, and plans materialized.  Everyone is excited to have this project moving forward. We have been working on this for several years.  PSA and HDI have purchased a hectare of land, had it surveyed, and have begun the process of accumulating the ideas

Supplying soccer teams with uniforms and balls is an ongoing project.  The rocky ground is hard on the balls and new players who want to join will need uniforms. 

Covid is taking a break in Rwanda, with no new COVID cases; the country is open to competing teams and the children are busy practicing and playing Football (Soccer to us here in the USA).