Helping in Byumba (part 1)

I had two reasons for visiting Byumba over the weekend – to see my friend Dorothy, returned to a second VSO posting, and her husband Vern; and to meet a small group of children undertaking a project led by Bugenimana Rachel and funded by the children and young people of Ealing Quaker Meeting. I have previously worked here three times with a group of Friends Church women, including the pastor's wife, Yvette-Marcelline, whose picture was on my first end-of-year leaflet, with her productive vegetable sacks.

Dorothy's Voluntary Service Overseas posting is to a teachers' training college cum secondary school. Students who don't do well enough in the exam at the end of Secondary 3 (year 9) to progress to academic courses preparing for university can have another 3 years of secondary education plus training as primary school teachers, though the entitlement to free education in state schools ends with Sec 3. Many of these students don't want to teach, and will use their first working years going to evening classes in preparation for something with better pay and status. However, these are the teachers primary students get, so training them in better methods than they themselves experienced – and their teachers before them – can only be beneficial.

Rwandese education usually follows the method introduced by the Belgian colonials: teacher writes on the board, students copy into their notebooks, students learn the notes and reproduce them in tests. Most schools have some textbooks, often in sets big enough for a class to use, and typically in unopened packages under lock and key. Dorothy is promoting two innovations – issuing textbooks to the class and using visual aids. She is also advocating for teaching practice, mostly seen by the teacher trainers as a waste of time compared with copying notes about how to teach. Her photos show the classroom she has equipped for the students to make their own wall displays.



Saturday I spent with Dorothy and Vern, whose house has occasional views of Karisimbi, the extinct volcano above Mutura, where I was a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't fortunate enough to see this evening view, caught by Vern, but there was enough sunshine for me to try to capture the valley between house and college.

The towers of the Roman Catholic cathedral, adjacent to the college, can be seen on the skyline. The previous image shows some of what lies in the intervening valley. Understandably, Dorothy doesn't walk straight down and up again to get to and from work, but follows the ridge.