Keep your fingers crossed!

A current project “Nyamirambo Women’s Center - Women for Women” funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia and the Peace Institute is coming to the end. From September onwards NWC doesn't have any sources of funding, not even to cover the basic costs such as NWC office rent. 

Last couple of weeks we were busy writing a project proposals. We were actively fundraising to ensure an uninterrupted work of the Center after the termination of the current project. We have applied to several potential donors - The Global Fund for Women, The African Women's Development Fund, ASA Program, and sent a letter of intent to Norwegian People's Aid. We have also started to work on a proposal to Open Society Institute - East Africa.

Grants would be used for an uninterrupted continuance of our activities, including administrative expenses necessary to keep the program running. The activities funded by these grants would contribute to socio-economic empowerment of women and poverty reduction, through trainings for income-generating activities, providing women with knowledge, skills and capacities, and achieving even greater impact of Nyamirambo Women’s Center in the local community.

So, keep your fingers crossed! 

How to write a good and successful project proposal

A project proposal is a detailed description of a series of activities aimed at solving a certain problem. Without direct project funding it would not be possible for NGOs to accomplish goals. Writing clear, thorough and targeted project proposals is therefore an essential to NGOs success. Mastering the art of writing a project proposal required unified approach to project management. The project proposal should be a detailed and directed manifestation of the project design. It is a means of presenting the project to the Funder in a format that is immediately recognised and accepted.

The art of writing successful project applications and raise funds for projects is not impossible for anyone. It is all about using the right tools, doing the right things and work structured. 

Since I've noticed lack of this skills among NWC members I decided to organize and carry out the workshop on writing a successful project proposal The aim was to enable participants understand the tools and techniques of effective project proposal writing that would facilitate funds flowing in the organisation.

Muzungu talks about some strange things

The training workshop was designed for middle and senior level project managers, team leaders and volunteers, who are directly or indirectly involved in writing the project proposal or concept notes, or are expected to be engaged in such activities in future.

Some NWC members participated, together with members of our partner organizations and few students and teaching assistants from KIST. Some of the topics covered - How to find funding; How to write a successful application; How to define goals, activities and outputs; How to describe methodology and timetable; How to foreseen potential risk, mitigation measures, evaluation and criteria for success; How to create a reasonable budget... 

Let's hope they learned something out of it. :) Knowledge gained through this kind of workshops is of no use unless and until we implement it in our practical life (or in our organization's life). Implementing the knowledge is nothing but the experience gained through it.

Going phoneless

Another phone has gone. This time mine. :) A young guy drop by at the office this morning, asking for Vestine. He said he has some papers for here. I answered that she'll probably come in half an hour or so. But he said it's urgent and asked if I have her phone number. I gave him my cellphone to call her. He started to talk to her, asking when she'll be in the office, and suddenly started to run away...

I'm too naive sometimes.. :) OK, it was old and crappy phone, but still..

Although, maybe this incident is not that bad at the end. I made a list of several benefits of having no phone. Here’s what I came up with:

• No more phone bill
• No roaming fees
• No more international billing tricks
• No more phone calls during dinner
• No more being woken up in the middle of the night
• No more being distracted by Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare every free moment
• No more arguments about whether your iPhone is better than my Android or Blackberry
• No more checking my phone to see if I missed a text message
• No more worry about brain cancer
• Smaller carbon footprint
• More freedom
• More presence in the moment
• More money left at the end of the month
  

Sounds good, doesn't it? Seems like I have a solid case on this one. But it's more likely I'll go and buy another one this afternoon... :)

Combating Gender Based Violence

Violence against women has profound implications for health but is often ignored. It's one of the most common forms of violence against women is that performed by a husband or male partner. This type of violence is frequently invisible since it happens behind closed doors, and effectively, when legal systems and cultural norms do not treat as a crime, but rather as a "private" family matter, or a normal part of life.

A WHO multi-country study found that between 15–71% of women reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lives. These forms of violence result in physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health and other health problems, and may increase vulnerability to HIV.

Risk factors for being a perpetrator include low education, past exposure to child maltreatment or witnessing violence between parents, harmful use of alcohol, attitudes accepting of violence and gender inequality. Most of these are also risk factors for being a victim of intimate partner and sexual violence. Situations of conflict, post conflict and displacement may exacerbate existing violence and present new forms of violence against women.

School-based programmes to prevent relationship violence among young people (or dating violence) are supported by the best evidence of effectiveness. Other primary prevention strategies, such as microfinance combined with gender equality training and community-based initiatives that address gender inequality and communication and relationship skills, hold promise.

In accordance to those facts, Nyamirambo Women's Centre actively take steps to organize and run educational programs for the local women on issues like gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, birth control, women empowerment... NWC strives to influence the local community through formal and informal education, encouraging the role of women in local authorities and economic activities, awareness-rising about sexual and reproductive health and in the fields of human rights and women’ rights, generally.

The workshop on Gender Based Violence was held on Sunday. The interest was enormous - more then 35 women and girls participated, we had to bring more chairs from my room, and still some of the participants had to stand...

 

Vestine and Esperance spent over three hours lecturing and answering to dozens of questions. It is aimed at providing participants with a good understanding of the dynamics of abuse and foundation counselling skills for domestic violence and rape. This enables participants to provide basic support to victims of gender based violence. Some of the topics covered in the course include the following: domestic violence, intimate partner violence, mental & physical health, prostitution, risk factors and prevention, sexual assault...

Eat to live, don't live to eat

The food here is delicious and locally grown, with few artificial ingredients, but people here seem to like fried food, mayonnaise and a lot of sugar and salt, as Nina wrote a month ago. So, the second workshop on healthy nutrition was held today at NWC

Workshop started with a brief presentation of basic rules and recommendations when it comes to food and health. A healthy diet involves consuming appropriate amounts of all essential nutrients and an adequate amount of water.

Aminatta and me by the charcoal stove

Nutrients can be obtained from many different foods, so healthy diet needs to have a balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, calories to support energy need and micro nutrients to meet the needs for human nutrition without inducing toxicity or excessive weight gain from consuming excessive amounts.

But, the real fun started with actual cooking session!
All members were present and responsible for some work (pealing potatoes, cleaning spinach, slicing carrots, onions, tomatoes, eggplants, preparing the meat...), under the supervision and guidance from our great cook Aminatta.

After few hours of cooking delicious and healthy meals were ready.

Ready-to-serve food

So, we could finally invite local kids for a lunch. More then 60 children, ages 2 to 12, ran to our backyard, sat on the floor and quietly waited for their free meal. We served rice, boiled potatoes, spinach with eggplants, and some nice looking beef stew (I can't judge on the taste, though).

At the end, all kids got a glass of milk and some fresh bananas. 

Esther serving milk

More photos can be found on our Facebook page. Check it out, and like it! :)

Exam Week

This week was all about tests. Final exams were given to students of English, literacy and computer courses. The purpose of these tests is to make a final review of the topics covered and assessment of each student's knowledge of the subject.

English course Final Exam

English class was really good - 17 students took an exam, and their score was 43 points (of 62) in average, which makes 70% of correct answers! Well done, girls!

More tourists coming?

Responsible Community-Based Tourism is a core activity of the economic empowerment of the NWC and is implemented in accordance with the principles of responsible tourism. In Rwanda, there is a variety of community-based tourism initiatives developed around the Millennium Village Project, however, there are no similar tourist initiatives in an urban environment in Rwanda yet.

The community-based tourism run by the NWC aims to carry out income-generating tourist activities in an urban environment in Kigali, in particularly in Nyamirambo district – a merchant quarter with a majority Muslim population and with numerous religious, cultural and historical sites.

James Scipioni from community-based tourism and eco-tourism agency Go Barefoot (London, UK) paid a visit to NWC on last Friday. He wanted to see the possibilities of including our tours in some of their Rwanda packages. We presented our work and took him for a walk around Nyamirambo.

The tours would give an insight to the visitors and tourists on the every-day life, social events, business etc. in Kigali. Visitors can obtain genuine information and knowledge on Rwandan people and culture, and at the same time they can get an opportunity to become actively involved in the NWC activities through voluntary work or to take part in NWC’s events, workshops and courses such as drumming course, traditional Rwandan dance course, and traditional Rwandan cuisine cooking course etc.).

James Scipioni with local kids in front of tailor's shop at Biryogo

What's new in Nyamirambo?

What's new in Nyamirambo? New Muzungu is in the neighborhood! I came on last Wednesday, we landed in the mid of the night. It was cold, wet, windy, misty... Muzungu in the mist.

So, the first week is behind me. And what a week! First impressions - it's great! There are no mist, rain, wind or mud anymore, people are nice and friendly, children are so cute, basic words in Kinyarwanda are not that much difficult to learn, NWC is doing a remarkable job for the community. Biryogo rules!

I've started giving English and computer classes. There are 5-8 women in the group, sometimes more. Everyday, Facebook is the lesson number one (when our Internet provider let us)! We can't start a class without checking our profiles first, laughing at the pictures, sharing and posting things at the walls, sending "we miss you" messages to Marko (previous volunteer from Croatia)...

Then more serious things are coming; we started with basic Excel features and formulas, so girls are now capable to create simple tables and charts, calculate their incomes, track the number of handicraft produced, their share in percentage, and things like this. They've learned how to import those spreadsheets and charts in the Power Point presentation as well. We are going to take s small exam next week to check what they have remembered. :)

IT course

The problem with computer classes (besides very lousy Internet connection) is that we have only one laptop that we can use. It is hard to explain things when everyone can't see the screen and follow you. We could use my laptop too, but it's run on Linux and I'm sure that Ubuntu and OpenOffice would cause more problems and confusions in the group. So, we stick to that one owned by NWC. But we should definitely consider including more computers (and possibly a beamer) when applying for the new funds or approaching possible donors for the equipment.

As for the fund-raising activities we've started to work on application to The African Women's Development Fund and to answering on additional questions from The Global Fund for Women. These are small scale projects, but could provide necessary funds for regular activities for some months, though. 

I've also wrote to the Hesperian, asking for donation in kind - their printed and CD guides could be a great health information and health education source for the Nymirambo community.

On Sunday we had a regular meeting here in the office. There were 8 members present and they were discussing the current financial situation (the ongoing project will finish by the end of September), plans and activities for the near future, how to increase the visibility of the Center, and so on... 

After the meeting we went to visit NWC's president Maria Aimee and her 8-days-old baby. Girls bought her a tone of things and Jacqueline took all of us there by her car. Nine people squeezed in the car, bumpy dirt road, Muzungu carrying a huge sack on his shoulder through the labyrinth of Nyamirambo's alleys - the fun was there! 

We've spent couple of hours at their house, eating, drinking, making jokes. It was funny, although I haven't understood much of it! Nevertheless, congratulations, Maria Aimee! You and (no-name yet) baby both look great! Isabukuru nziza!

Yesterday there was a workshop on sexual and reproductive health. Over 20 women participated and topics covered were family planning, sexual and reproductive health, safe sex and contraception, sexual transmitted diseases.. The Center will continue to give a lectures and organise this kind of workshops for the local community. 

Sexual and Reproductive Health Workshop

And, at the end, I have to share the incident we had. Few days ago a bunch of kids drop by asking for the empty bottles of water. While Eliab was reaching for the bottles under the table, one of the boys took his phone! We've tried to catch him, looking for them around the neighborhood, asking people and other kids, but there was no use – the phone with all contacts is gone...

Healthy Nutrition

On Sunday we held the long awaited workshop on healthy nutrition. Why do we need it, you ask? Well, even though the food here is delicious and locally grown, with few artificial ingredients, the people here seem to like fried food, mayonnaise and a lot of sugar in their tea. Also, large portions are the norm.

So, our task was to educate the members on some simple rules of healthy nutrition and put the knowledge into practice. On Sunday we started with a brief presentation, followed by the actual cooking. The ladies gathered in the backyard and started peeling potatoes, slicing carrots and tomatoes and our cook Aminatta put all the ingredients together, using as little oil as possible and cooking instead of frying. When the food was ready we invited almost 40 local children to our backyard and served them the food – rice, meat and lots of vegetables. The kids were on their best behavior and surprisingly quiet – probably because they were eating. After the meal we served fresh fruits and milk.

All in all, the workshop seems to be a success, though only time will tell if the members really start putting their knowledge into practice. 

Eat, play, learn.

A workshop on healthy nutrition will be held on Sunday which will include a lecture with power point presentation, small leaflets on eating healthy food will be distributed and afterwards a degustation of healthy food and drinks will follow. The meals and beverages from freshly squeezed fruits will be distributed among the most malnourished children, who live near NWC, approximately some 20 of them. The aim of this workshop is to raise awareness on healthy nutrition, especially make mothers aware that their children need more healthy food every day. The problem here is that a lot of healthy food loses its value in the preparation process, since they prefer to soak everything in oil and fat, rather than cooking food without oil or even boiling it in water with limited usage of salt. We've also noticed that local cuisine includes too much carbohydrate per day. We will try to introduce them to a better way of preparing food and present the long-term risks if they do not change their cooking style soon.

For children from the neighbourhood we organized one event, where we sang and danced to children songs and they taught us their traditional dancing moves, it was very amusing. Even today when we pass some children on the street they start dancing in front of us, regardless there is no accompanying music. We are going to organize a couple of more events for them, where they can be creative in drawing, colouring and playing.

At the beginning of our computer classes Nina and I tested their skills in Microsoft Office Word, which were very good. That is why we decided to concentrate more on Microsoft Office PowerPoint as they can sometimes prepare presentations for NWC visitors, which will be quite helpful for the NWC president. We divided them in two groups because we only have two computers available and each group made a short ppt about Rwanda, including basic facts and pictures and each student made at least one slide.

Inzogira ishuri or school bells

In the last two weeks I was more or less in charge of English lessons with the ladies from the NWC as Nina was taking care of the NWC technical matters. I must say that I was sometimes surprised by their excellent knowledge of English, however the pronunciation proved to be a bit more problematic, so I focused the lessons on the correct pronunciation. We started off with simple sentences as I wanted to find out at what level of English each individual was. Some were brilliant and some still need more exercise. That is why Nina and I are encouraging them to use as much English as possible, even among themselves on Mondays, which are usually reserved for handicrafts. We did devote one whole class to prepositions of time and place as they were troublesome for some of the students and wanted to improve their knowledge.

During the classes we try to read at least one English book (for children) in order to practice reading and pronunciation and I even gave them some books to take home and repeat what we've read. They are very happy when I ask them how certain words are pronounced in their language, Kinyarwanda, and they seem to enjoy their role as teachers. They are absorbing new English words really fast, which is helping them to extend their basic English vocabulary. To help them overcome the fear from talking in English (I think they are afraid of making mistakes and sometimes some women become more silent when we are in a bigger group) I ask them at the beginning of every lesson about their previous day or weekend and they put sentences in correct tense. I've noticed that younger girls are usually more talkative. Then we have role play, which includes dialogues from everyday life and sometimes described situations are so amusing that we simply have to laugh.

Due to the ladies' preoccupation with the handicrafts before our project coordinator left, we had to postpone English exam to this week. We even had a small test, where I dictated some sentences and some of them did very well whereas others did not perform that well. However I believe that a small progress can be seen if I compare their pronunciation and some sort of fear of speaking English they were having at the beginning of our classes and now. Classes are now running in a more relaxed environment.

Web design for dummies

In the past week I have been tirelessly working on updating and improving the NWC website. The biggest challenge was the “News” section which never really took off. Hopefully it will be livelier from now on as I added pictures and current news. Feel free to judge for yourself: http://www.nwc-kigali.org/.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday two journalists from BBC's Fast Track visited the centre. They took the tour of Nyamirambo and conducted interviews with the members and the president. It was an interesting event for all, though our pregnant president was a little tired after a whole day of filming.

On Tuesday morning our lovely project coordinator deserted us to return back to Europe, taking with her most of the first batch of fabric earrings the girls made the previous week. Hopefully, they’ll make some more before we leave in two weeks.

This week we will hold the English exams and start English classes for children who are now on holiday.

New Earrings

After seeing a new kind of earrings in many of the handicrafts shops in town, we thought we would try to make them with the ladies attending the handicrafts course at the NWC. To our delight they figured out how to make them in a few minutes and soon colorful peaces of cloth were turning into extravagant earrings. Here are some of their first attempts, we expect more in the following weeks. 

The new Muzungus in town

We arrived a week ago after an arduous journey from Slovenia through Venice and Doha. Our team includes Maja, the project coordinator from the Peace Institute and two volunteers – Indira and me, Nina. This is my second visit to the NWC, so I was prepared for what was in store.

Our work started the next day with a workshop for the local kids – the coloring books and crayons we brought were a hit, so soon the porch in front of the office was way too full. We had some success in teaching the children not to call us Muzung but instead use our names – now every time we walk down the street we hear them yelling Maja, Inga or Nina (or some variation of that).  

On Friday Indira and I held our first computer class with the ladies. Fortunately, we can use two computers – NWC’s and Indira’s laptop, so we can get more work done. We started the class by testing their knowledge of MS Word with basic exercises which they were able to complete, so our predecessors did good work. Our next task is making a presentation in PowerPoint, which is coming along nicely. The same group also attends our English class where we work mostly on conversation. Our first class was interesting – though timid at first the conversation quickly turned to dream jobs, marriage and even religion. In the coming weeks we will work mostly on conversation and real life situations, where the girls can utilize their knowledge of English. 

Workshops on sexual and reproductive health with doctors and medical students from Slovenia

We had a busy few days. Last week six doctors and medical students from Slovenia held four workshops for women, men, girls and boys from Nyamirambo community. Doctors and medical students live in Uganda, on lake Bunyonyi, where they have trainings and practice from tropical medicine. So we decided it could be useful for both us and them if they would visit NWC and give a lecture to people from the community. 


The themes covered on the workshops were family planning, sexual and reproductive health, safe sex and health in general. All the workshops had the same framework. After a short round of introductions the workshop leaders encouraged the participants to brainstorm about differences between the two sexes. The same answers were used to show the difference between sex and gender. Next, the participants were divided into four smaller groups. Each groups had to discuss and answer a question about sex and/or contraception. The questions given to the groups were “why do people have sex?”, “what can a couple do besides having sex?”, “what types of contraception do you know?” and “why some people do not use protection?” respectively. The answers given from the groups were then used stress the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and to point out risk factors and risk groups. Syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, genital herpes, crabs were all mentioned. Special attention was given to HIV/AIDS and the importance of early testing and treatment. The workshop leaders proceeded on to explaining the golden rules of safe sex and demonstrating the use of condoms. For the demonstration of the use of condoms the leaders asked for two volunteers from the group. Main parts of male and female reproductive organs were drawn and explained, as well as women’s menstrual cycle.


On the first day two workshops were held. The morning one, for the women, was extremely successful. More than 50 women participated in the workshop. The classroom, where we usually have workshops and classes, proved to be too small to accomodate everyone who wanted to participate. The workshop was moved to the office room, where the women sat on the mat. In the afternoon workshop thirty men participated. I consider this to be the least successfull of the four workshops held, since some of the men did not take the lecture and subjects seriously. Indeed, some were drunk and asked insulting questions. On the second day 20 girls and 30 boys participated on the workshops. The workshop leaders encouraged the participants to actively participate and give feedback. All participants were active in the discussions, asked many questions and gave ideas. At the end of each workshop the leaders distributed condoms to all the participants. A number of condoms were also given to NWC to be available for free for people from Nyamirambo community. 


Doctors and medical students from Slovenia with NWC members 



Workshop for women
Showing how to use a condom

... and then giving out free condoms 

















Workshop for men
Workshop for girls
Workshop for boys



Marko

English class

Except Computer class, I also started teaching English class. Well, not on a regular basis, just to help out Eliab, the regular English teacher, while he prepares for his exams. My methods are a bit different from Eliab. I noticed that he concentrates more on grammar and less on conversation. The result is that the women know irregular verbs by heart, but they have difficulties in putting a sentence togehter. That's why I decided to focus more on conversation. And did I hit the jackpot. 

The girls now seem to completely forget about the Computer class and want to focus only on English. In fact, we skipped Computer class altogether last week, to focus more on English. Some of them still don't have enough vocabulary to actively participate in the conversation, so I usually say/ask something in English, one of the girls translates it to Kinyarwanda, they first answer in Kinyarwanda and then we try to put the sentence together in English. For now we are doing great, but I'm running out of themes I can cover for vocabulary. We already did „colors“, „fruits&vegetables“, „clothes“, „sports“, „geography“, „getting around town“, „time“, „sewing“, „animals“... Also, sometimes I hate how I forget myself and act like I'm still in Europe. When we were talking about sports I just went on and on: „Yeah, we have football, basketball, handball, swimming, waterpolo, skiing, ski jumping...“ Then I see the confused look on their faces: „Ok, sorry. Forget about skiing and waterpolo.“

Marko

Fundraising

The current project from which NWC receives most funding is over in a few months. From September the normal functioning of NWC is questionable , unless we get some now funding. So, while the Peace Institute in Ljubljana prepares big project proposals for the European Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, we are helping Marie Aimee, the president, to write smaller applications for funding. 


Last week Suncica wrote an application for Global Fund for Women, a nonprofit grantmaking foundation that advances women's human rights by funding women-led organizations worldwide. The GFW grants range in size from US $500 to $30,000 per year. We also finished a letter of interest for MamaCash, an international women's fund that supports pioneering and innovative women's initiatives around the world. MamaCash grants range from $5000 to $50000 per year. If successful, the grants would be used for an uninterrupted continuance of all NWC's activities, including administrative expenses necessary, for a few months. 


Few days ago, we received a confirmation from GFW that they received our application and that it's in their system now. Also, they note that it usually takes them 7-9 months to decide. We are trying to be optimistic about the applications, but what worries us is the fact that WC is a rather small group. It consists of only 13 members. International organizations like GFW and Mamacash are maybe more willing to give money to bigger groups. And so we come to one of the biggest problems of NWC. The 13 present members are reluctant to receive new members, as they view NWC as a source of profit and they don't want to share it with more women. This way of thinking is perhaps understandable from their point of view, but also makes NWC look more like an exclusive group of women and not as an NGO that expands it's influence and grows bigger every year, how it was concieved at the beginning. Still, we hope that the accomplishments of NWC thus far (and there has been a few) will impress the donors.


Marko

Damage report

We didn't thought of ourselves as being very accident prone, but somehow we managed to cause damage. On the place we live in, as well as on ourselves. On the day we arrived, when we first tried to open our backyard doors, we broke the key. It stayed in the lock. So we first tried to get out the piece of the key stuck in the lock and then to find a lock-smith somewhere in the busy, dusty streets of Nyamirambo.

Then a mirror. There was only one small mirror in our room and we kept it on the window. Of course, it fell on the floor. There is a saying about seven years of bad luck brought by a broken mirrow... We are just not sure does it come to the owner of the mirror or the breaker of it.

In the days after the mirror we mostly caused physical injuries to ourselves. First Marko banged his head diving in the pool of the Hotel des Mille Collines. His face is all scratched and has a bump on his forehead which makes him look like a unicorn. The rest of his face looks like he washed the steet with his cheeks. We usually tell people he fell of a moto-taxi. It sounds less embarassing. Then Suncica burned her leg, while riding on a moto-taxi. Or at least we thing it was while riding a moto-taxi. There was a bubble on the place of the burn, but it burst at some point. It doesn't look nice. If there are any doctors reading this, please feel free to contact us – we kind of suspect it has become infected and it would be very unconvenient for our plans if we would have to amputate her leg right now. And let us not forget the tooth Marko broke while eating some brochettes (skewered goat meat).

Suncica & Marko

Computer class

Computer class

Last week, on Thursday, May 3rd, I started teaching computer class. Usually Eliab, who works as the English teacher, also volunteers at the computer class. So we agreed that, for the timeI'm here, I can take over computer class. My class, for now, consist of seven wonderful ladies: Jeannette, Mariam, Joyce, Eugenie, Epiphanie, Mayimuna and Zayinabi. I've been told that there are more women who are attending, but for now, they haven't showed up. Also, the idea of time seems to be very fluid to some of the women. If the class starts at 11 a.m. some have the habit of slowly walking in at around 11:50. But I'm usually also always late for work back home, so I don't take it against them.

Until now, Eliab held the class with only one computer, which can be very frustrating, not to say almost impossible to organize. He would show them an exercise and they would each had to repeat it one by one on the same computer. I brought in my computer, so now we are working on two. It's a bit easier. I organized them in two groups. In each group there is one woman who is doing a little bit better then the rest and knows a bit more English, so she can make my job easier by translating, and help the other women in their exercises. I forgot to mention that most of them (with two exceptions) know English very poorly, which makes my job even more challenging. More challenging, but also more rewarding if I manage to teach them something. For now we did some repetition of basic Microsoft Word Office stuff. Since not all of them have their e-mail accounts, we also created one for each student and I’m teaching them to compose e-mails, send and receive them. In the coming week I plan to do some more Word Office, some Internet use, and maybe even some Excel.

I am really fascinated by my students. Some of them are women in their fifties, but they are coming to every class, trying really hard on every exercise and staying long after the class is finished to practice some more. Every single time we break the schedule for at least na hour. I also like the enthusiasm some of the women have for learning ICT. I just hope that they will be able to put in use in everday life everything we practice. I think the computer class is also a good opportunity for women to spend some time together. It is also really touching when, after the class, you get e-mails from your students saying how they are happy to learn new things. For example, one of Jeannette's e-mail I got two days ago: „Hi! My good Teacher,I see you are very good on face to face,you are very very happy,the first all of I want to thank you so so so much because you teach us very well that's why you welcome in our class,you are my best Friend and May God help all things you want and God bless you.“ In Croatia they would just cut the tires on your car. Oh yes, as much as I would like them to call me "Marko" or at least "Mark", they just call me „Teacher“. Which I hear is not a big compliment in Rwanda, since teachers are very underpaid. 

Marko

Computer class with Eliab

Biryogo market opposite the NWC