Competition Entries

So it has been about two months since we parted ways with our team and headed back to our homes in the UK and Kigali, since then we have all been super busy with studying, work and David leading his second team of volunteers.

This week Tearfund launched their #reasontosmile photo competition, and two of our team members Chinwe and Rachel have entered photos that really mean a lot to them about their time out in Rwanda.

It would be really fantastic if you could vote for these photos, as they hold such dear places in our hearts and really sum up what the trip meant to us.

#reasontosmile Chinwe's Entry

To vote for Chinwe's photo follow this link - #reasontosmile Chinwe's Entry

#reasontosmile Rachel's Entry

To vote for Rachel's photo follow this link - #reasontosmile Rachel's Entry

We really hope these photos give you a reason to smile, just as much as they give us a reason to smile!!

Thank you for all of your support throughout our trip - we had a totally fantastic time and we hope that these photos demonstrate that!

To find out what our team leader David has been doing with his second team of ICS volunteers go check out their blog at - Kigali Autumn Team 2014

Picture of the Day 15/09/2014

We have now come to the very very end of our placement - thanks for sticking with us for so long!! Our time in Kigali has been life changing and we have learnt so much. We really hope that we have inspired you to 'Challenge yourself to change your world'!

From left to right - Claire, Rachel, Henry, Beth, Sam, Vicky, David and Chinwe!!

Lots of love Kigali Dream Team July to September 2014 xxx

Our Kigali Highlights

We have now come to the end of our Tearfund ICS placement, partnering with AEE based in Kigali City. We have had some of the best ten weeks of our lives; doing our project work, creating relationships with the staff, living together, celebrating birthdays and just generally having adventures.

SO we thought, what better way to end our trip than to celebrate all of our team highlights!!

Gasabo Mission Outreach:

Our entire team loved this day - leading the children in Sunday school, playing games with them after church. It was the first time we had done any work with children and having such a positive reaction from both the children and their leaders was fantastic, and a great encouragement!! We loved getting to dance with members of the community and see numerous choirs perform.  It was an honour being asked to come up and pray for people - it was one of the first times we felt we had truly integrated with a community.

Mission Outreach Blog Post

Moving in Day!!

We were sad to be leaving our friends from orientation however, our first day in the AEE guest house was full of laughter and joy as we couldn't wait to get started with the work and really get stuck in to the reason we came out here and joined ICS in the first place.  Further we were also so excited to properly bond as a team and live together - deciding who was sharing with who etc...

The First time the Staff Meeting was held in English:

This was one the best moments of the entire trip. Prior to our English lessons the staff were unable to communicate effectively in English and required a translator at all times. However after a couple of lessons their language skills improved dramatically and they were able to hold the meeting in English!! This was a great reinforcement that what we were doing was worthwhile and was having a positive impact. Post this and with more lessons the staff were able to hold a fully fledged debate in English during our last week.

AEE English Lessons Blog

Feeling like a Part of the Team:

We loved the way we were taken around the see all of the self-help groups and the projects that AEE were a part of - it really made us feel like part of the team that they wanted to share all of their work with us. Also the way that they included us in the staff meetings was lovely and how they were so genuinely interested in what we had been up to during our week and weekend.

Going out for Dinner:

We loved all our hangouts as a team, visiting different restaurants, experiencing new sorts of food. We even introduced Henry and David to the delights of Mexican food by taking them to Meze Fresh. We always had so much fun; laughing, joking, messing around, telling stories.

Climbing Mount Kigali:

We climbed Mount Kigali as a team - and although we didn't find the cafe at the top and it took rather longer than we expected. We had a fantastic time working together as a team, telling stories, encouraging each other and hanging out. We got down just at the rain began to start - lucky timing!! As a team we really showed how strong and determined we are through climbing Mount Kigali.

Conquering Mountains in Kigali

Celebrating Chinwe's Birthday:

Chinwe turned 20 whilst we were out in Rwanda and to celebrate her birthday we threw a party with popcorn, samosas (her fave!!) and cake. We were fortunate enough to be able to borrow some speakers and we all had a fantastic evening dancing and singing with friends. We were so happy that Chinwe enjoyed the evening  and thought that it was a fitting celebration for a 20th birthday.

Hanging out as Team:

All the nights that we hung out together: watching films, playing cards, playing murder in the dark and mafia. Nothing got the Dream Team going like a heated game of charades and the name in the hat!! So many nights were spent laughing and joking about that it would be too difficult to pick a favourite!

Picture of the Day 14/09/2014

Today our UKVs fly home to England! We wish them a safe journey; they will be sorely missed. We have become our own little family out here in Kigali, and made some fantastic friends!

Two of our UKVs will be flying to Kenya and then onto Heathrow, and the other two will be flying to Amsterdam and ending in Heathrow!

Picture of the Day 13/09/2014

We spent today at de-brief presenting back to the other teams what we have been doing during our placement and hearing all the exciting things that they have been getting up to across Rwanda!!!

It was so lovely seeing everybody again - but can't believe we all go home tomorrow!!

Conquering Mountains in Kigali

Conquering Mountains in Kigali By Rachel Garner

This is the third piece written by Rachel for her local newspaper The Brentwood Gazette!

What does it feel like knowing you’re going to be living and working with complete strangers for ten weeks? Honestly petrifying. I have to tell you for the entire week before my ICS placement I was racked with dread, uncertainty and at points convinced I wouldn’t be able to do it. A mammoth sized task lay before me – to immerse myself into an entirely new culture, with entirely new people for ten weeks and come out the other side unscathed.

It felt as if there was a ticking time bomb to judgement day.  Are they going to accept me? Will they like me? Am I really strong enough and mature enough to handle this? These thoughts were just the first of many challenges I would face during my time in Kigali. Challenges that felt like immovable mountains; too huge to face on your own. And then I realised something crucial – I don’t have to tackle these on my own. We are all part of one team! Team Kigali 2014 – international development volunteers, planners extrordinaires and mountain conquerors! Together we could achieve anything, and we proved that many times.

Some of the team on Mount Kigali with our lovely little guides!

Last Saturday we took a team trip to Mount Kigali. The plan was 45 minutes of climbing, finished off with a celebratory coffee and breath taking views. But in true “Team Kigali” fashion the plan went straight out of the window!  We actually spent about 2.5 hours climbing through densely packed forest, and we NEVER found that coffee shop. (Rwandan coffee is rather special).

Beautiful flower en-route up the mountain.

From an outsiders’ perspective this was a pretty rubbish day; lots of strenuous effort with no tangible reward. Yet this was one of my favourite days of the entire trip. We demonstrated how strong we were as a team; relying on each other to make it up steep hills right to the very top. We spent the day laughing, taking pictures, telling stories and revelling in each other’s company. When we reached the top we were proud – we’d achieved something to be genuinely proud of.

Some of the fantastic views we were lucky to see!!

It’s a good metaphor for our entire time in Kigali; trial after trial, not quite achieving what we set out to achieve but realising we’d actually achieved something else - something much more worthwhile. I never expected it to be easy, but I did have a glossy magazine view of volunteering. Take part in a few projects; snap some pics, tadah world saved! From an outsiders’ perspective what we have done is exert copious amounts of energy to no obvious avail.

But all these tests made us stronger, better, and more mature people. They demonstrated our personal strengths and weaknesses; allowed us to adapt as a team, to accommodate each other. Personally, I have been able to improve my flexibility, patience, understanding, forgiveness and the ability to think on my feet. And that’s just for starters. Together we have blossomed and moulded each other;  we have become a family; learning one from the other. We may not have had a glossy magazine experience of volunteering, but we’ve had something far more powerful – we have experienced life.

Beth, Vicky and Rachel midway through climbing Mount Kigali

There is something strangely liberating about spending your summer with strangers. You are free to loosen the chains of modern day society and live as who you are, with no pre-conceptions and no existing judgements. You are able to conquer mountains head on with a new zest and vigour. You are free to truly live!

Picture of the Day 09/09/2014

We had our last session at the nursery today - we taught the children about vegetables. We are really sad to see the end of this project as we all had a fantastic time and loved getting to know all the characters in our classes!!

We wish them all the best for their very bright futures ahead of them!

Structural Learning Week 7 - Raising Awareness of the View of Disabilities Around the World

Raising Awareness of the View of Disabilities Around the World By Vicky Quaife:

Every week a member of our team has to educate the other members of the team on a developmental issue. It’s now week 7 and we’ve had such a variety of topics and I have learnt so much through them all. This week was my week to do my ‘structural learning’ and my topic of choice is disabilities.

Definition:

When you hear the world ‘disability’ many things may come to mind, but if you are unsure of this word here is a definition to help you out:

‘A disability can be physical (such as paralysis, loss of limb, deafness), mental (such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder) or intellectual (such as a learning disability). Some people are born disabled; others become disabled as a result of an accident or disease. Disabilities range from moderate to significant and can be temporary or permanent. With the help of a supportive community, education and vocational opportunities, disabled persons can make progress.’

Shocking Statistics:

Did you know that 1 BILLION people around the world (that’s roughly 15% of the population) are disabled? (UN)- That’s 1 in every 7 persons, or in some countries it’s as high as 1 in every 5!

And that within those 1 billion people, 80% of them live in developing countries!

20% of the world’s poorest people are disabled, and tend to be regarded in their own communities as the most disadvantaged.

1 in every 10 children has to cope with a disability around the world.

And within those children only 2-3% attends school! Imagine that- 97-98% of disabled children stay at home doing nothing every single day, never having the opportunity to learn, engage with other children, make friends. Not attending school and never learning basic skills is going to seriously impact your life as you grow older, having no education will probably mean that they will never be able to get a job.

Mortality for children with disabilities may be as high as 80 per cent in countries where under-five mortality as a whole has decreased below 20 per cent, says the United Kingdom's Department for International Development.

Also please bear in mind that these statistics are widely underestimated as in many communities people with a disability are shunned, isolated or stigmatized against, so are often left out of census reports, or families hide their children away.

It is also important to remember that these issues are not only occurring in developing countries. In the UK 75% of companies of the FTSE 100 Index on the London Stock Exchange do not meet basic levels of web accessibility, thus missing out on more than $147 million in revenue.

Only 45 countries in the world have some sort of anti-discrimination and other disability-specific-laws.

These two videos sum up a little bit about what persons with a disability rights are and how they can and should be able to exercise them! 

If you would like to see where I found my statistics then please have a look at these two websites.

http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=18

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/diswpa04.htm

My Passion:

I first started to become passionate about the rights and welfare of people with a disability when I started placements at university. I studied Occupational Therapy and during my placements I would be working with people who had physical disabilities, mental health problems and long term illnesses that resulted in some sort of disablement for that person. During my final placement I was working with adults who had a learning disability; through these placements I was able to see first-hand how important therapies such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and speech and language therapy can really dramatically change and enhance people’s lives.

This video is just a little cheesy summary of occupational therapy just so you all know, and it gives a few nice examples of how it can change peoples’ lives. 

Impacts:

For many children, the presence of an impairment leads to rejection or isolation from experiences that are part of normal development. This situation may be exacerbated by faulty family and community attitudes and behaviour during the critical years when children's personalities and self-images are developing.

However existing knowledge and skills could prevent the onset of many impairments and disabilities, could assist affected people in overcoming or minimizing their disabilities, and could enable nations to remove barriers which exclude disabled persons from everyday life. As I believe that actually people who have certain disabilities wouldn’t necessarily have to live a different life if it wasn’t for the environment and society creating barriers for them. If all our roads and streets were perfectly smooth a blind man could easily adapt to his environment and would be able to live a relatively normal and fulfilling life.

The issue is that in many countries, resources are not sufficient to detect and prevent disabilities and cannot meet the need for rehabilitation and supportive services of the disabled population. This is where we come in. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) are a set of 8 goals created by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which set out to:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

These goals are great and are really inspirational and are planned to be completed by 2015. However what’s missing?

15% of the population is missing. Although disabled people count for around 10-15% of the world’s population the MDGs still do not include persons with a disability.

The “END EXCLUSION – Let’s Enable the Millennium Development Goals” project sets out to change attitudes so that persons with disabilities are not denied their human rights because of discrimination. They especially want to make sure that persons with disabilities are included in programmes designed to reduce poverty, which is often not the case.

This video explains about the ‘Say Yes’ to inclusion campaign, which is backed by the European Union. 

Picture of the Day 08/09/2014

Today we exchanged our AEE staff meeting for anther group debate - we had a great time with the staff discussing all the different topics. We will be so sad to leave them!!

Our team with some of the staff members!!

Picture of the Day 06/09/2014

On Thursday whilst the rest of our team were out at the catch-up school and EPR school, Sam went off with Madame D. to a self-help group training session!

Madame D. leading the session

Picture of the Day 05/09/2014

Today we held our group debate with the AEE staff. Despite some issues with the horrible rain - yuck! - it was a really successful session and the improvements in the staff's English were so obvious. Our main aim with the AEE staff was to improve their confidence and public speaking ability - we feel that this session was a great demonstration of that!

We were split into two teams, who had to argue for and against on a variety of topics!

Culture, is it really that shocking?

A member of our team - Rachel - wrote this piece for her local newspaper.

Culture, is it really that shocking? By Rachel Garner

According to the Oxford Dictionary, culture shock is “the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone when they are suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes”. So naturally when you are sending a group of 25+ teenagers to a completely different continent (Africa), with a significantly disturbing history (the Rwandan genocide of 1994), culture shock  is an issue that’s going to get flagged up. Both ICS and Tearfund continually mentioned culture shock during orientation weeks in both the UK and in Rwanda, and to the best of their ability prepared us for it. They highlighted possible behaviours that we could find distressing, offensive or just down-right weird.

One of our first weeks of placement - visiting the beneficiaries

However, I think that no amount of preparation is going to ready you for the reality of a different culture and that culture shock affects everybody in different ways. We were even given examples of In Country Volunteers (ICVs) who experienced culture shock within their own country. So given that we are a mixed team of UK and Rwandan volunteers I thought a good way to explore culture shock would be to talk to members of my team about their experiences; how they feel it has affected their time here; and also what advice they would give to other people going to different countries susceptible to experience a similar sort of culture shock..

From the team interviews, it is clear that we have all experienced some form of culture shock

“I felt overcome by everything that was different and felt like I had just been thrown into a completely new world” (Beth)

But what is fantastic is that, as a unit, we have been able to turn this into something positive and something to grow from.  One of my team mates described culture shock as

“realising that you are definitely an outsider in a situation” (Chinwe).

This can be particularly hard to move on from, but when you work together as a team, it is possible.

Members of the team working together at Kimihurura Farming Cooperative

Despite facing some challenges because

“culture shock influences team dynamics through what is considered rude in different cultures” (Beth)

which would sometimes leave one half of the team feeling as though they had been disrespected through a lack of understanding. Overall the differences in culture have had a really positive impact on the members of our team.

Learning from one another - different cultural skills

“It has affected us positively, you really get to know how other people live, and you adapt and become flexible because of the changing of environment” (David).

Culture shock has given us the opportunity to learn about ourselves and others, developing our patience, empathy, respect and understanding. Culture shock has even led to some of our most memorable moments as a team because

“it makes the team happy learning something new about another culture” (Sam)

and allows us to become more of unit as we create new friendships built on accepting one another for who we are.

Team Kigali, minus Beth who was doing some office work!!

So what would we say to other people who are at risk of experiencing culture shock? How can they turn it into a positive experience? My friend Henry said

“If you are truly a team, culture shock won’t be a problem.” (Henry)

meaning that no matter what happens, if you are able to work things out as a team, and find common ground, then you can’t really go wrong! But sometimes this needs helping out with a few top tips! The common theme throughout the interviews was to be open minded; be ready to find new experiences; be prepared to both ask and answer questions. I love the way Claire summed this up

            “to be flexible, patient and try to learn” (Claire).

At the same time it’s important to remember that…

“… if where you were was exactly like home then you might as well have stayed at home” (Beth).

Exactly! We went out to Rwanda to try make a difference and if it were no different to the UK, and if we didn’t find ourselves a little “shocked” at times by the culture, then we may as well have stayed at home. And I’m so glad we didn’t!

Picture of the Day 04/09/2014

We visited the catch-up school in GAHANGA for the last time today, we are so sorry to see the end of this project, we had such a fantastic time taking part. The teacher Olivier said "we thank you, we have spent a long time together, you've been a great help to us!"

Henry leading a class

To see what we got up to at the school watch our video - Catch-Up School

Holiday Camp Visits

When we started work with AEE the children had already started their school holidays, during July they get two weeks off school. In the second week we led two different holiday camps; one in the Gahanga sector and one in the Kikicuro sector.

Some of the children making animals shapes during a drama session - can you guess what they are?

In these holiday camps we planned many different topics such as: HIV prevention, hygiene and sanitation, music, drama, dreams and ambitions, and obviously lots of games! In the Gahanga sector there were around 160 children that attended whilst 96 children attended the Kikicuro Holiday Camp. In the Kikicuro Holiday Camp the caregivers were present instead of the teachers to work along side us in conducting these sessions.

The children were split into three groups depending on their age; one class for Secondary and P6, one class for P4-5 and one class for P2-3.

Children playing the trust game during one of the drama sessions.

The group for secondary and P6 was HIV prevention. The topics discussed were transmission and prevention of HIV, focussing on sexual intercourse and the importance of abstinence in order to avoid HIV. The students were split into 5 groups and were each given a different ‘impact’ topic that HIV can have on a person or their family such as: poverty, strifes in relationships, isolation etc. They were given time to discuss as a group how they would portray this impact and act it out to the rest of the group.

The Children really enjoyed the drama session and requested that they would love to do more drama in the future with their teachers. Drama has a very positive impact on children’s self-confidence and their ability to speak in public places in front of their peers, as every member in a team had to have a speaking part.

Children miming out their chosen profession to highlight their dreams and aspirations - these ones want to be footballers!

The group for P4-P5 focused on music, drama and dreams. The sessions focused on getting the children to express their dreams, and the importance of staying in school to get good grades. We started by playing a game to get them to use their faces to show various emotions. This was helpful for them to practice using their facial expressions and emotions while acting to give a good and captivating performance. They then split up into groups and had a different word that they had to portray in a mime (so they were not allowed to talk!). The children enjoyed trying to guess the words and some of the groups had very impressive ideas on how to act. Lastly the children split up into different groups depending on what career they wanted in the future and acted out different scenarios they might come across in that profession. The children were excited and happy to participate in these sessions and enjoyed learning a new song in English ‘Our God is a great big God’ which included actions to the lyrics of the song.

David and Rachel leading a session on personal hygiene - hand washing, clothes washing, hair washing!

The group for P2- P3 focused on hygiene. The children were taught the importance of personal hygiene and how good hygiene can prevent illnesses, such as worms or typhoid. We explained that by preventing illnesses it can enable the children to remain in school and to achieve a high attendance. The children enjoyed learning a step-by step process of how to effectively wash their hands.

All age groups participated in games together such as: Duck, Duck, Goose, Bulldog, making animal statues in teams, throw and catch with tennis balls and a national game Sticks, which is a girl v boy game where it doesn’t end until one team has caught up with the opposition team and touched them with their stick.

One of the children demonstrating their new knowledge!

As the holiday camps were a one off it is difficult to predict the outcomes of these visits, however we believe that as we worked alongside the teachers and caregivers our methodology will be passed onto them and can continue to use it to plan their sessions.

Picture of the Day 03/09/2014

We have been giving English lessons to the teachers at the EPR school - today we talked them through personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and demonstrative pronouns!

Sam and Claire talking through the sheets

Picture of the Day 02/09/2014

At the nursery today we were teaching the children about fruits, we did this by getting them to paint and colour in stencils, as well as drawing the fruit from real life objects!

Getting all messy with the paints!!

Nursery School Visits

During the last four weeks of our placement in Rwanda we will be teaching at a nursery school from 7.30am to 10am every Tuesday morning. The headmistress has requested that we follow the schools normal curriculum throughout our lessons, the entire team of eight will be splitting across all three levels. In total across the classes – baby, middle, top – there is about 65 children.

Playing games with the children

The headmistress also asked us to try and make sure that our lessons are as fun and interactive as possible; focusing on activities like music, games and arts and crafts.

The first sessions that we ran on Tuesday the 19^th of August had a central theme of animals; with the top and baby class focusing on domestic animals, and the middle class on aquatic. Before each individual session started we played some group games outside, so that the children would feel comfortable around us, and also so that they would be energised and ready to learn. 

'London Bridge is falling down'...

Once we were finished with the outside games, we took the children into the classrooms so as to begin teaching them about the animals. We taught them songs that we had written about each animal. The top class learnt about: cats, dogs, goats and pigs. The middle class about: fish, frogs and octopus’.  Finally the baby class learnt about: cats and goats. Each song was incorporated with actions to help them to remember them, and also to keep them active and on their feet.

Some of the posters we used as visual incentives

Throughout these music sessions we also played an animal stretching game, whereby the children would have to pretend to be a certain animal. In the baby class for example we used animals such as: giraffes, frogs, cats, birds – so as the try and keep the children as engaged and active as possible.

In the top class during their indoor session they went on to do arts and crafts. Chinwe and Henry who were leading that class go them to draw each of the animals that they had learnt about, as well as trying to label them. 

Chinwe leading an arts and crafts session with the top class

Our second session at the nursery also had a central theme of animals, this time focusing on wild and aquatic! We had a really great time interacting with the children, playing games, making them laugh, teaching them new songs. They particularly enjoyed making conga lines and doing the Hokey Cokey.

Playing follow the leader

Next time we will be focusing on fruits, and hope to get the children really engaged by bringing in practical examples that they can touch and see and smell!

Overall we have had a fantastic time at the nursery, and have really enjoyed getting to work with the children for extended periods of time. This has been a really rewarding project and one that we have all looked forward to going to each week - despite the stupidly early wake up!!

Henry teaching the top class about cats and dogs

Picture of the Day 01/09/2014

So we kicked off our September with a bang - planning out the rest of our week, and completing the planning for tomorrows lessons at the nursery school!!

We will be leading all three classes in a lesson about fruit!

Picture of the Day 30/08/2014

We climbed Mount Kigali with three lovely tour guides from a local village - we didn't manage to find the cafe at the end, but we had an absolutely amazing time and saw some breathtaking views!!

We are now officially explorers

Picture of the Day 28/08/2014

Today we spoiled ourselves to a little 'retail therapy' Rwanda style!! So so so excited about all the fruit, looks and smells so delicious!

Mango, passion fruit and bananas galore!!