And now for my real job!
on Annemiek Miller (Rwanda), 27/Jan/2008 14:14, 34 days ago
January 24, 2008Work is starting to take off again. UNICEF came to visit Kigeme this week, to see and hear about the Resource /Teacher Training Centre we established in the last calendar year. I say“we” but it was really the work of a co-volunteer, Sarah, who worked alongside me for a year. Last June-August, we had a short-term volunteer come and write a proposal to build such a centre. For the time being we are located in a large room at the secondary school here in town. When Emma the volunteer started to present the proposal to different organizations, DFID (UK) wanted to see it and invited the Minister of Education along. She spent 4 hours hearing our presentations, watching our trained teachers teach, and speaking about how necessary it is to change the methodology and programsin our Teacher Training Colleges for Primary teachers. The colleges are in fact grades 10, 11 and 12 of high school. She was clearly impressed with what she saw and for us that was a highlight of our work so far. They now talk widely about the CAPACE methodology, an acronym Sarah and I coined. MINEDUC does not just take in these projects however. So it was up to VSO Rwanda in Kigali to pursue this initiative. This is how UNICEF has come on to the scene. It looks as though they want to have three hubs in three provinces where a District, aTTC and a cluster of Primary schools work together with VSO and Rwandan technicians to improve the methodology taught in the TTC’s and used in the primary classrooms.I am also looking for further funding for our Nursery School Project. It’s a three year project and The Royal Dutch Embassy funded the first year but this funding is not renewable. I am looking for about 20,000 euros for each of the 2 years. This project carries the salaries of a Rwandan Coordinator and a motor driver, feeds about 1500 children porridge daily, trainsteachers in child centred teaching techniques with a focus on early years, meets with parents to raise awareness of the importance of education, distributes school materials, distributes furniture made locally and makes and distributes resources.I continue to work with the small group of trained teachers who have all taken on a mentorship role with one or two of their colleagues. This requires me to go out in the field 2 times a week or more.As you see busy busy. Hope I can keep up the news on a regular basis.