This week's Education Conference

The last three days of this week were spent in Kigali at the Annual  Education conference for all volunteers and staff of VSO who are involved in the education Programme.


VSO has three main priorities in Rwanda, namely, Education, Disability and National Volunteering. The Education Programme is the largest. 


The best session of the conference was the one in which the students, teachers and headteachers and DEOs (District Education officers) were involved. They were asked to discuss and  draw pictures of what the education system is like now and what they want it to be like in the future - ie by 2020. I was working with a group of Primary School students and their perspectives were very interesting - on the whole they were happy with the schools as they are now and it was difficult for them to visualise a school of the future until we went and showed them what a computer can do - they had never seen one before. At the end of the session the students stood up in front of the whole conference and said what they wanted to see in the future. These comments ranged from 'clean schools, with concrete floors and roofs that don't leak' to 'running water, electricity and good quality teaching, more textbooks and computers in the classrooms.


In the afternoon we had a  panel of experts, including a member of the National Inspectorate and representatives of UNICEF - who are doing a brilliant job here in Rwanda (I am pleased to say this because I have supported UNICEF financially on a monthly basis for about 20 years now!!


I'm back in Gitarama and looking forward to Saturday night with some friends who are coming to our house to cook a meal - there are great advantages to being the only house in town with a proper cooker!!

Massive advertising hoardings

I'm including this photo to show you the size of the advertising hoardings here. Impressive? Yes, but not as impressive as the guys who shinny up to the top with no rope or safety harness to change the pictures every couple of months - rock climbers eat your heart out!!!!


Lots of love to everyone - hope the summer is going well. 


PS I'm told the Rainy Season will come to an end soon - I'll let you know when it does!!


Tx