Ceramic water filters project

Having clean water to drink is considered a luxury in the country. Water is mainly obtained through collecting rain water or from bore holes and the more elite purchase from water kiosks (providing reservoir water). The only filtering process the water goes through before it is drunk is the boiling of the water which is not sufficient. Sometimes the desperation for water is so big that it is even consumed as is – which naturally contributes to people getting sick.

RDIS is partnering with a Canadian charity to manufacture low cost ceramic water filters locally. It basically looks like a clay plant pot. These filters have apparently been proven to filter water to a very high standard. Even if sold at a very low cost, it will still be a challenge to promote/market the filters as for generations long there has been no culture of filtering water, not even to speak of paying for filtered water. But once the ball gets rolling, general health will improve significantly.

RDIS is currently in the phase of preparing for the manufacturing of the first filters, but one of the things delaying the project to move forward is the difficulty in communication between the Rwandese and those in Canada … so this is one of the things that has kept me busy this week – assisting the two parties in gathering and communicating the information correctly in order to move to implementation.

Domestic water tanks

These water tanks are slowly spreading throughout the country, depending on the people’s ability to afford cement. Rainwater captured by the roof and then fed through a pipe into the tank. This could alleviate water shortage problems quite a bit if cement wasn’t as expensive.

Fruit adverts

Bananas for sale!

You can’t buy one banana though, their only sold per branch. Costs app 50 pence per branch (about 80 bananas).

Avo’s almost for free!

Avocado pares – the largest and most beautiful you’ve seen – costing 5 pence each when brought on the street.

Kigali Memorial Museum

Not the most ideal place to visit on a day off – a museum portraying a genocide – but certainly one of the most insightful things to do in the country!

The Genocide Memorial Centre takes you through every step of Rwanda’s history, explaining the complete war and genocide from every angle in a very sensitive manner. Even through I thought I new the whole story, having read quite a lot about it before I came, the museum put things to me much more into perspective. Definitely recommended if you are to pass through Kigali at any stage!

The last placard on the wall in the museum read something along the lines of: a genocide is not the killing of thousands of people, it’s thousands of killings of individuals.

Rabit for dinner …

being prepared by the butcher on the left and the cook on the right.

Newsletter

RDIS started a quarterly newsletter earlier this year to inform their beneficiaries, donors and local community on whet their up to. I was drawn into assisting with contributing articles to the next issue at first, but have now been handed over the responsibility of overseeing the complete compilation (including being the editor). Luckily it’s just a 10 pager, but it’s still completely outside my sphere of expertise! I’ll be working on this during the course of the next few weeks in between other things.

Thanks for keeping visiting!

Progress Reporting

It’s quite ironic that a weak point of mine, writing, is one of the main needs of the organisation I am working with. As their English skills are, well, still in the phase of being developed, they struggle to comprehensively report on their projects’ progress. When I first took out my camcorder to capture a group of youth welcoming us with song, the RDIS coordinator poked me in the shoulder and asked me to record as much I can so that they have better evidence of project progress. And this instigated his request for me to write reports on their projects as part of my role here. I’ll also attempt to help their staff on improving their report writing skills (as a more sustainable solution to this requirement). Improved reporting will allow increased donor confidence, better marketing and raised project awareness. Let’s see what I can do!

Lake Kivu – Kibuye Day Trip

We had a great day out! I joined the students group from the UK (Transform team) for a day trip to lake Kivu. On these very bendy roads, it took us 2 hours to complete the 80km journey to the lake (in a minibus), but it was all worth it. I can’t really describe the lake in words, so please look at my photo’s to get an idea of what it’s like.

We did a boat ride to one of the little islands off-shore and spent about an hour docked to the island while we tested the water. The water was lukewarm and calm – perfect for swimming – I could have stayed in it all day if we didn’t had to head back for lunch.

A highly recommendable visit!

Banana Leave Cards Marketing

One of the products of the Youth at Risk projects (see my section in this for more info) is the making of cards, using banana leaves as decorative medium. The problem is that the market in the country is very small for this product, as it mainly appeals to people who earn a proper income and tourists only. This week, among other things, I had a look in to how this product could be marketed overseas, as increased sales would benefit these youth immensely. Some work still needs to be done in this area.

English Teaching Progress

I already completed two weeks of teaching English! This week, due to other activities, I didn’t teach every day, and strangely enough I actually found myself wanting to go back to my classes. Not really because I like the teaching aspect that much, but because I’m missing the children and they appreciate every single class so much that you kind of feel you want to give them all you can.
I’ve found a new strategy with my advanced class. I give them a topic and then we discuss it in the class, with me chipping in helping them to say what they want to say. This gives them all the opportunity to practice talking and I learn new things about the country at the same time. The Rwanda Vision 2020 (our last point of discussion) is quite interesting!

Fruit Juice & Jam Factory

The fruit juice and jam factory of RDIS was bourn to address two requirements. Firstly, to provide pineapple farmers in the region with an additional opportunity for sales, as the local markets many times receive an overflow of pineapples. Secondly, to generate an income with the aim to become independent of international aid for running their development activities.

The factory produces pineapple syrup, strawberry syrup and mixed jam consisting of pineapples, papaya and tomatoes. This week, I had the chance to help out bottling pineapple syrup. I made a point of it to observe their process carefully and think I might even try making my own when I get home.

This business is still very small and has many hurdles to overcome in order to expand, mainly restricted by finances, but the first steps have been made … and their products taste really good!

Pineapple Widows

An association for widows (from the genocide and HIV AIDS deaths and wives of men in jail) was formed in 2000. Together, the women started growing pineapples for its profitability. The association also brought women together that lived otherwise in isolation, and at their meetings they would assist each other morally and spiritually.

Pineapple sales have enabled the women to send their children to school, to buy proper clothes, obtain health insurance, provide their families with balanced nutrition food including meat once a year and to jointly run a savings and credit programme. It also enabled the association to improve their business with the investment of more and better tools and with them joining a co-operative for pineapple growers. At the end of 2009, the projected savings of the group will amount to 600,000 Rwandan Francs. The aim is mainly to use this money to buy each family a cow.

Genocide after effects

15 Years later, the country is still struggling because of the genocide set-back. Many women were widowed and children orphaned because the men were either killed during or jailed afterwards. Another consequence was deforestation because people’s houses were destroyed and they therefore required a considerable quantity of wood to rebuild their homes and facilities. Causes like these have left the country in a much poorer state and hence widows, orphans and tree planting are focal points of development work in the country.

Disaster prevention methods

One aspect the RDIS projects are very attend to is disaster prevention. Droughts, floods and famine as a result of climate change are real causes for concern. Some of the initiatives of RDIS are encouraging communities to build food storage huts (e.g. for rice or potatoes) and to plant trees for rain accumulation (see the section on Climate Change for more details on this topic).

Living the Word

So many places we’ve visited and people we met, locals, organisations, NGO’s, churches, children … I noticed them share the word of God interchangeably with their daily living conversations. God is practically part of their every day lives in a real way. They acknowledge that they can not live without His provision, from moment to moment, whether it is simply surviving from day to day or living proficiently. I might be on the biased side as we move mainly in the church circles, but even so, it’s such an encouragement to see people from a huge variety of circumstances and backgrounds openly living with God – as they know there’s no alternative.