Rwinkwavu Community Library and Learning Center
Ready for Reading (RfR) is currently working on a library/learning center initiative in partnership with Partners In Health (PIH) www.pih.org, and the strong support of the federal and local government and the Rwinkwavu community in Kayonza District in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. This project will help provide much needed educational improvements in the district.
Partners In Health (PIH), is an international organization co-founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, providing comprehensive health care services and advocating for the sick and poor in developing countries worldwide. Five years ago PIH began the reconstruction of a full service hospital in Rwinkwavu, the first PIH District hospital in Rwanda, to provide medical and health care for the Kayonza catchment area. In addition, they provide economic opportunity by the training and employing of Rwandan home health care workers and other locals to staff the Rwinkwavu Hospital. PIH has transformed this remote and depressed region by restoring health and hope through their community-based system of health care.
RfR visited PIH in Rwinkwavu on several occasions while traveling with colleagues who funded the rebuilding of the Rukira Health Clinic. This gave us an opportunity to establish a relationship with PIH and see first hand the quality and effectiveness of their development model. Some at PIH knew about the Kagugu Library Project and the federal government had drawn up district plans that called for the building of a library in the Kayonza District. As we considered where to locate our next library project a partnership with PIH, RfR and the Rwinkwavu Community seemed like a natural fit.
In short, due to the symbiotic nature of the relationship between health and education it became clear that the appropriate site for the Library/Learning center was adjacent to Rwinkwavu Hospital. With the endorsements of the Mayor of Kayonza District, the Executive Secretary for Rwinkwavu Sector, the Director of Rwinkwavu Hospital (Ministry of Health) and PIH, Ready for Reading has been granted land 30 meters from the hospital as the Project site.
Though the central focus of PIH remains health care, they collaborate with and support organizations engaged in economic, educational and social initiatives; consolidating efforts rather than duplicating resources. If health care is the first step in breaking the cycle of poverty, education then, becomes the next logical progression in the process of improving people’s lives. The entire PIH staff in the US and Rwanda has been generous in endorsing, advising and assisting RfR in gathering information through their contacts with other NGOs, in both the federal and local government and in serving as our fiscal agent. They also provided us with a point person in Rwinkwavu, Christina Bryant, until we hired RfR Country Director, Katie Uher in March 2009. Katie is working closely with PIH and others coordinating all our efforts on the ground in Rwanda.
As the Rwandan government works to rebuild the physical infrastructure and the human resource capacity of the education system, the Library/Learning Center will help bridge the gap in the delivery of programming in language and computer literacy to all segments of the population. When there are few English-speaking teachers, books (libraries) and information technology (computers) become substitute teachers. In addition to providing language and IT literacy training as its central focus the Library/Learning Center programming will offer story hours, distance learning, serve as an information resource, serve as a career planning and skills training center, as a site for a pre-school, venue for PIH talks and information pertaining to community health and other social and cultural programs. The Library/Learning Center staff will be working closely with the five primary/secondary schools in the sector through our Children’s Librarian/School Liaison and build a rotating collection of storybooks and supplemental reading material tailored to the curriculum and offer after school homework help.
With President Kagame’s vision to advance Rwanda as an information/transportation hub in the East Africa region, this project comes at a particularly opportune time with its capacity to provide instruction in English and IT. Coupled with health care, the acquisition of these skills offers individuals, and the community as a whole, the ability to achieve sustainable socio-economic transformation.
Benchmarks
- fund-raising
- August 2009 - completion of design development drawings and outline specifications and interior/exterior renderings
- September 15, 2009 - completion of construction document plans and specifications (structural/electrical/mechanical) by Rwandan architect, Wilson Nkuranga, Co-Director of Kigali Architectural firm, PLAN WORKS
- September 30, 2009 - PLAN WORKS submits construction documents and specifications to Kayonza District to obtain required environmental and building permits
- Founder Betsy Dickey and Associate Director/Consulting Architect Allen Moore plan November 2009 trip to Rwanda to review costs, select sub-contractors, and determine the terms of construction management - update stake holders
- Ground-breaking contingent upon raising 100% of the funds for construction
- Pursuing sources for books and learning materials; working with African and International publishers
- Identifying and developing language and computer literacy programming
- Developed an Internship program utilizing Rwandan university students, sponsored by Orphans of Rwanda www.orphansofrwanda.org, to conduct community focus groups in Rwinkwavu ( Spring 2010) to provide input for literacy and IT training and other programs. They will also initiate a language and IT literacy training program at the Library/Learning Center
- The Library/Learning Center Management Committee is also working to gather demographic information to help identify the programming needs of all segments of the population
- making contacts with other organizations to coordinate additional programming in the arts, entrepreneurial skills training, agriculture and trade skills, conferences, pre-school, youth counseling and other ideas proposed by the community
Rwinkwavu Hospital
Hospital Ward
Arrival at the Rwinkwavu Hospital
Community Learning Center Library and Amphitheater
Community Learning Center Library and Amphitheater
