In 2007 David Steiner came to Jersey to set up a local branch of Hands Around The World. I had known him for many years through the Community Work project scheme for Jersey Overseas Aid and David asked me to become one of the founding trustees. He also suggested that we might undertake a Jersey project in Brazil.
Thus started a long and fruitful involvement in HATW. Since then I have done a couple of project visits to Zumbo in Uganda but my key interest has been in Bugarama in Rwanda.
Bugarama is a fast growing market town on the southern edge of Rwanda, bordering the Congo (DRC), about as far from the capital Kigali as you can get in Rwanda. David had met Dr Simon Mbarushimana, who had been born in the town, and had obtained funds from JOA to enable St Paul Muko School to start developing secondary classes with a block of five new rooms in 2010.
It was meant to be a one-off project but Dennis, one of our volunteers decided he could do more. Many of the existing classrooms were dark and dingy and he thought he could brighten them up with a lick of paint and install new doors and windows. There were not enough latrines and the school was regularly flooded so he set about rectifying the situation including building a security wall around the whole school.
In 2015 I joined him again and started some building work on new classrooms in another local school, Mihabura primary. We built nine new classrooms, an IT Centre, a volleyball/basketball playground and renovated several more classrooms.
We have been enormously fortunate with the support and encouragement of JOA, especially since the arrival of their new CEO, Simon Boas. As a Jersey-based volunteer charity we have had privileged access to grant funding. We gradually started to include other schools in the town within our partnership.
One of the developments I am most proud of is at Nyakagoma which is actually outside Bugarama. This small hillside community had just an old barn-like building for a nursery. The dark interior was lit by holes in the wall and roof. After nursery the children would have a daily two hour walk to the nearest school along a busy main road. The school now has six primary and three secondary classrooms. We have a wonderful welcome there whenever we visit.
Simon Boas encouraged us to think more strategically about what we might achieve. He enabled us to commission an independent impact assessment in 2022 and then to build on that in 2023 with a three-year strategy, founded on a workshop involving all our local partners at nine local schools, and a grant of over £500,000.
The result is the ongoing, multi-faceted, Ubumwe (Unity) project which includes classroom construction, a school kitchen extension and a school security wall. We are aiming to build Girls Hygiene Rooms, supported by distribution of dignity bags to all girls at each of our partner schools, and have set up a fund to promote sustainable agricultural projects in the schools. We are also supporting Father Emmanuel, headteacher of St Paul Muko, in his scheme to bring over 300 street children back into school.
St Paul Muko is now one of the leading schools in the country, a tribute not just to our involvement but the remarkably inspiring teachers we have come to know there as friends. Dennis is known locally as ‘Mayjambere’ (the Developer). I have acquired the name ‘Gisubizo’ (the Answer). It has been an absolute privilege to be involved.