Great News! We finally received our possible assignments for the delegation. I've listed the email with everything on it. I know which are my top three.... I think! All of them are doing such great things for Rwandans though and I cannot wait to get my assignment!
PROFILE FOR VOLUNTEER FIELD ORGANIZATIONS
1. AJPRODHO is our main partner organization on this delegation. AJPRODHO stands for the Youth Association for Human Rights Promotion and Development. AJPRODHO was founded by students at the National University of Rwanda with a mission to “empower youth for human rights respect and advocate for socio-economic betterment”. Pursuant to its Strategic plan 2010-2014, AJPRODHO pursues three programs namely: (i) Human rights and Access to Justice,(ii) Democracy and Governance as well as (iii)Youth Economic empowerment. Ongoing projects include; legal aid for: sexual minorities and sex workers, youth infected and affected by the HIV/AIDs as well as incarcerated juvenile offenders. Other projects include youth hearing campaign, Policy debates for college and high school students, service delivery monitoring as well as promotion of savings and lending with in communities. AJPRODHO has proven that it has an approach that the government respects and appreciates. For example, when Kigali City outlawed motorcycle taxi drivers in 2007, AJPRODHO spearheaded the letter writing campaign to reinstate the taxi drivers, most of whom are youth; and the taxi's were re-instated. In Rwanda, the definition of youth is anyone between the age of 14 and 35. For more details about the work of AJPRODHO, visit
http://www.ajprodho.org/.
2: The Community of Potters of Rwanda: COPORWA is a non-profit organization working for the Batwa indigenous people of Rwanda (
http://www.coporwa.org/). They work for the promotion and protection of the rights of people and help to generate sufficient income for the often very poor Batwa communities.
COPORWA's objectives are:
• to improve the organization capacity in the Batwa communities in order to enable them to have an impact on political decision on a local, national and international level;
• to empower the Batwa to take this work upon themselves;
• to make the Batwa communities realize the importance of their participation in public decision-making;
• to make the new socio-economic opportunities more accessible to the Twa communities through facilitating training of skills, research and dissemination of the necessary information as well as facilitating access to credit and new appropriate techniques.
COPORWA's accomplishments include:
• education on farming for Twa orphans, widows, detainees and students, as well as all those who live in the field (financed by the World Rainforest Movement)
• a socio-demographic survey on the Batwas after the war (financed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Rwanda)
• a socio-economic survey on the situation of the Twa Women (financed by HCHR-Rwanda)
• research on gathering of evidence of innocence for the Batwa who are accused of charges of genocide (financed by HCHR-Rwanda).
GYC has visited with COPORWA’s villages four times. During the Winter 2010 program, we began a relationship with the village of Mubuga and have since followed up with them in several meaningful ways, including financing the purchase of their health care cards, reporting on the situation in the village and a community consultation between the potter and non-potter communities. More details on the accomplishments of this summer’s volunteers can be found by visiting the following blog post:
http://turikumwe.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/kibuye-site-visits/ or seeing our Program reports
3: Health Development Initiative (HDI) (
http://www.hdirwanda.org/): HDI’s mission is to organize and promote community-based health care development in Rwanda. HDI works to build sustainable alliances between the community and professional health care providers, as well as to empower providers to better educate and serve their communities. One of the communities with which HDI works is the Potter community, and it is through a visit to HDI’s projects in 2009 Summer (see the program report) that GYC was first introduced to HDI’s team and operations. HDI was founded by GYC alumnus Dr. Aphrodise Kagaba. They have also been doing theatre projects for sexual and reproductive health rights sensitization in communities, working with youth theatre groups. Their work is similar to that of RAPP’s in this respect, but it is also somewhat different in that HDI is more of medical program, run by doctors with many licensed doctors coming tovolunteer in Rwanda to work with them, like Dr. Carl, who was pictured in the 2009 Program Report. It is possible that there could be overlap between the work with COPORWA and that of HDI, or AJPRODHO and HDI. Together AJPRODHO and HDI will be trying to engage about LGBTI rights. This summer, GYC volunteers helped build a training manual on health issues faced by the LGBTI community.
4. Uyisenga N'Manzi: (
http://www.uyisenganmanzi.org/) Aims to contribute to the psychological and economic rehabilitation of unaccompanied children affected by HIV/AIDS and the genocide as well as young girls who were victims of rape or other forms of sexual violence, placing them in child headed households and supporting their villages in a variety of ways. You can learn more about Uyisenga N'Manzi by reading an excerpt of an article written by a previous delegation member in the GYC program report on Rwanda:
www.globalyouthconnect.org/pdf/rwanda.jan2006.pdf. Our work with Uyisenga in the past has ranged from grant and proposal writing, to the creation of an international internship program to implementing the following projects with members of the Niboye Peace Village.
· A “memory book” photo project with the orphans
· A friendship bracelet weaving project
· A yoga project (which has since morphed into a gymnastics program)
Follow-up on these projects could take the form of creative work, but it could also be something like helping the youth brainstorm ideas about business plans for making money with their bracelets. If you have another specific skill that you can share with a group of Rwandan youth from Uyisenga over the course of the volunteering, please propose a project. These projects should be youth-friendly and teachable within a four session program. Minimal translation may be provided from English to Kinyarwanda, but French will be an added advantage. You should have experience teaching these skills, and feel free to include some back-up materials about your experience.
5. Rwandans Allied for Peace and Progress (RAPP) - Creative Action in Rwanda for both Local and Global Development: Rwandans Allied for Peace and Progress (RAPP) creates and implements collaborative projects, often involving partners from all over the world, in order to advance both local and global peace and prosperity. Based on a belief that education, health, economic opportunity, good communication and creativity are some of the fundamental elements for a prosperous and peaceful society, RAPP implements projects in two main programs: Akazi Keza and Kunda Ubuzima.
Akazi Keza (Good Work) Program - economic empowerment for vulnerable people:
The Rwanda Knits Project (
http://www.rwandaknits.org/) Provides hand-operated, American-made knitting machines, technical, and business training to low-income Rwandan women, enabling them to increase their incomes through economically sustainable knitting cooperatives, through which they produce garments for their domestic market and export markets.
Income generation activities for Associations of PLWHA -- Income Generating Support and Business Training for 12 Cooperatives of People Living with HIV/AIDS, as well as Community Theatre Troupes. Cooperatives of PLWHA have been identified, trained, and loans have been distributed.
Kunda Ubuzima (Love Life) Program (
http://www.blogger.com/ creative communications for individual and community strengthening:
Amajwi y’Ubuzima (Voices of Health) Project: Creation of and technical support to Amajwi y’Ubuzima Community Theatre Troupes that perform Serialized Dramas (soap operas) on a regular basis, to improve community statistics on HIV Prevention, Awareness, and Stigma Reduction, SRHR, Family Planning, and other health concerns.
Youth at Work Project: Healthy Behavior Needs Assessment, Peer Education, and Theatre Mobilization of Hotel Restaurant and Bar Workers, Moto-taxi Youth, and Domestic Workers and their communities in Musanze and Kigali.
During the Arts for Peace Program this August, the volunteers were tapped to write, direct and star in a play on malaria prevention. The play was created, rehearsed and preformed all in one day. To read more about the project, and to see a video of the performance, starring the crowd-pleasing muzungu mosquitos, check out this webpage:
http://turikumwe.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/volunteer-fieldwork-malaria-prevention-play/
6. ISHYO: Founded by eight Rwandese women, including Carole Karemera, who is the star in the movie Sometimes in April, ISHYO is a cultural organization that has been working with young people in elementary schools as well as in the streets and in bars and cafes, bringing intelligent theatre to the Kigali community for several years as well as educational theatre and youth literacy programs. The organization’s moto is “culture for everyone” and they strive to engage Rwandans in their shared cultural experience and heritage. Last summer was our first partnership with ISHYO, and it was extremely fruitful - the most important example of which was the Art for Peace Mini-Conference - for more details on the conference, check out this webpage:
http://turikumwe.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/mini-conference-on-arts-for-peace-and-human-rights/. In the January 2011 report you can read about the work we did with them as well. Also, check out ISHYO's facebook page, which our volunteers helped set up! :
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ishyo-Arts-Centre/142607695781152#%21/pages/Ishyo-Arts-Centre/142607695781152?v=wall.
7. ADBEF - The Association for the defense of human rights, lasting development and well-being of the family (with a special focus on the rights of Domestic Workers)
http://kimisagarayouthcenter.org/a/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=15 ADBEF's mission is to mobilize and encourage the community to effectively promote and improve social justice and socio-economic development of the households. To fulfill this
mission, ADBEF is committed to do the following:
1. Defend the rights of family members
2. Promote sustainable development
3. Promote family welfare
Activities
ADBEF visits domestic workers with view to sensitize them on the respect of children's rights, fighting against HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, domestic violence and sexual harassment
- Carry out dialogue-shaped sensitization to the youth on fighting against HIV/AIDS
- Sensitization on family planning
Publications
ADBEF held an inquiry on domestic workers in order to know their working conditions, problems they encounter and their suggestions. Further, the survey aimed at finding out the level of their knowledge about HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and sexual abuse.
The Vision of ADBEF is that everyone is at peace in a world of hope and social justice, a
world that will not experience poverty and the HIV/AIDS, where people live happily with
dignity and social and economic security. According to the result from the campaign done by ADBEF among domestic workers about using condoms to domestic workers sector Kimisagara from 5 to 7 May 2010, among the 106 domestic workers has already passed to voluntary counseling test of HIV /AIDS, 6% were infected of HIV / AIDS. This percentage is double to the Rwandan national prevalence rate (3%), which is still worrying.
8. KIGALI HOPE Association "Rwanda young Positives" is a non-government (NGO) organization, driven by a motto “Towards an HIV free generation” dedicated to break the chain of HIV transmission by promoting prevention with positives and behavior change communication among young positives. It’s an initiative of young Rwandan graduates from different academic fields infected and affected by HIV and AIDS with zeal to help the Rwandan society live a better life. Currently, the organization operates with in Kigali city, and with time will extend its activities to other parts on the Rwandan territory.
Recently the Rwanda AIDS Control Commission has given the organization an award of innovation in accelerating the fight against HIV and AIDS by educating young positives on Reproductive health and use of condoms.
