November 2007 Newsletter

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your continuing interest in our work in Rwanda. At the end of this newsletter is a list of gifts for Africa that we hope you will consider giving in the name of your friends and family this festive season. For instance, for $40 or £20 you can equip a Rwandan student to learn English, or provide a kit for a midwife to deliver a baby. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Ntarama Community Centre update

N4A volunteers Mary Jo Terrill and Darlene Rice have just returned from Rwanda, bringing good news from the building site of the Ntarama Health and Education Community Centre.

During a door-to-door survey last summer, local residents expressed their desire for a place where they can:

• be seen by doctors, nurses and psychotherapists;
• be prescribed medicine;
• learn about health and nutrition;
• learn or improve their English and learn about micro-finance;
• receive remedial education to help them stay in school;
• learn vocational skills with which they can earn money;
• meet and hold events as a community.

Together with our local Rwandan partners, this is what we hope to deliver. The community consists of 3,000 widows and orphans of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. They feel isolated and vulnerable, and many orphans have no one to hand down traditional knowledge about nutrition, health, hygiene or subsistence agriculture. They also live many miles walk from the nearest health facilities and have to work rather than go to school full time.

Construction started in July and is halfway complete. Our challenges now are:

1. Putting solar panels on the roof for light and electricity;
2. Raising funds for the salaries of medical professionals and teachers;
3. Purchasing kits for doctors/midwives and mothers/babies, and for general clinic use.

Liaising with local hospitals and health facilities

Mary Jo and Darlene also worked at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali; a health clinic in Nyamata; and the Partners in Health clinic in Rwinkwavu. At the hospitals, Mary Jo and Darlene worked alongside nurses, demonstrating ways of comforting patients in labour and assisting with breastfeeding techniques for premature infants. Mary Jo passed on skills to nurses and midwives such as labour support techniques and positions for birthing. Mary Jo and Darlene also cheered seriously ill children, including young HIV positive patients, in the paediatric wards with toys, games, and puppets. Additionally, they visited an orphanage for infants and toddlers, leaving blankets and baby toys for the children.

Psychotherapy training

Another team of psychotherapists will be in Rwanda in November-December. The team will continue our training programmes that equip community leaders to give counselling and support to survivors who have been given little or no care since the 1994 genocide.

Learning Centre Update

Before the N4A Teaching Team left Kigali this summer, they asked a representative from the British Embassy to conduct random checks of the Learning Centre to ensure that it was being well used. We are receiving consistently good reports that the LC is being used every day by numerous students of all ages. These students eagerly use all of the learning supplies that we are able to send to Rwanda, and we aim to add to our library of books and other resources.

As we plan projects for next summer’s team of volunteers, we are also considering creating a mobile unit of the LC to travel within the community, giving English lessons and providing learning tools, such as books and stationery (paper, pens, crayons, etc.)

Please have a look at our special Holiday Giving flyer and consider purchasing a gift through our partners in Rwanda, SURF and Solace, in addition to or in lieu of traditional gifts for your family and friends.
And please remember that no Network for Africa money goes towards ‘overhead’ (administrative) costs for staff or volunteers. Any funds we are given go to our local partners and projects in Rwanda.

With best wishes,
The Network for Africa Team