Du-thoughts
Everything in my life starts with a "du" now, even my thoughts. As we are
quickly approaching one year of the first suggestion of Duhugurane and
have completed the first phase of our first training group, I want to
paint you a picture of what is going on over here.
A little over a month ago, we were ready to launch our first training and started quietly looking for young women 18-25 years old, who were English-speaking who would be willing to pilot our ideas. We were looking quietly because we didn't want to be inundated by girls. We selected the first cohort and were ready to start.
The first day of class (February 11) I arrived early, praying and hoping someone showed up. I laughed to see that there were girls there before I was, over an hour early. I'm not sure they really understood what they had signed up for, but they were there. I started the class of 25 young women by introducing what we were about to embark on and shared Hebrews 6:11-12 (NCV), "We want each of you to go on with the same hard work all your lives so you will surely get what you hope for. We do not want you to become lazy. Be like those who through faith and patience will receive what God has promised."
As we began the training, I established my table in the back of the room to be able to participate in as much or as little as I needed/wanted to be involved. I had hired two capable, certified trainers from the organization that developed the work-readiness curriculum and a Logistics Coordinator to make sure the trainers had everything they needed--tennis balls, flip charts, copies, markers...eggs (this is a hands on class!). Remember, labor is very inexpensive here, so what you are imaging for 3 people is probably a tenth here. I had scheduled in a couple of sessions that I was going to be facilitating called Living in God's Zone, a strengths and abilities assessment to help the girls learn how to discern what God wants for their lives. I was excited and nervous to be in front the girls.
The
first week covers goal setting, personal development, leadership, team
building and interpersonal communication. The topics covered help to
build unity within the class. When they began team building activities,
they were awkward and weren't sure what they were supposed to be doing,
but they finally jumped in and started actively participating.
The teaching style of this curriculum is participatory, which is something most have never experienced. The education system is very one sided, where the teacher stands in front of the class and lectures all day. So right away, they love the songs and "energizers" that get them up and moving. I love in this culture how there is always a song and a dance handy.
As the second week began, there were a few who had to drop out for various reasons, but we were at 21 strong. They were beginning to step outside of their friends they had come with and were starting to interact as a group. Team work was becoming more of an enjoyment and less of a chore. We covered topics such as Worker's Rights and Responsibilities According to the Rwandan Law and Safety and Hygiene at Work.
The last part of the second week was spent educating the girls on HIV/AIDS prevention and Gender-based Violence. This is where I need to do some explanation. First, HIV/AIDS is a huge issue in most of Africa, especially the countries surrounding Rwanda. It is still definitely an issue here and there is little education. The first session of this module is what we would consider sexual education. The trainers facilitate this part of the training in Kinyarwanda, their native tongue, because often body parts are not referred to the Kinyarwanda word and there is still a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding. For example, the majority of sexual abuse is by a family member or close friend of the family, possibly an uncle. He will call the abuse or body parts by another name and the girl doesn't realize she is being violated. So it is very important for the trainers to do this part in Kinyarwanda.
The second session is Gender-based violence education. I feel this part is the weakest of the curriculum we are using, but wanted to give it a chance. I quickly realized there is a huge gap in understanding in the culture. A rape scenario was being read from the girl's perspective and from the boy's. It was interesting because it helped the girls to understand how boys see things different and things can be miscommunicated. After the reading, it was to be discussed. Long story short, even my trainers were at a loss of how to discuss this scenario, giving opinions that are very outdated. For example, that rape is partly the girl's fault. I decided to "interject", some might say I took over the class. I started by saying that rape is never the fault of the victim. We then looked at the scenario and broke it into the various types of abuse being exhibited-emotional, physical and sexual. The girls had never heard someone openly talk about this before. We closed the session by talking about who they would go to if this was happening to them or someone they knew. They seemed to be at a loss. The culture here is still very tight-lipped about these topics. There is no relevant education in schools and the rate of teenage pregnancies is increasing at an alarming rate.
During lunch, the girls were telling me if they or someone they knew were being abused they couldn't report it because they aren't supposed to be having boyfriends in school and if they reported something they would get in trouble for having a boyfriend. This maybe partly true and partly their perspective, but either way, they feel they have no one to talk to about these issues. I'll come back to this.
So after completing the final week of class, covering Financial Fitness
and Exploring Entrepreneurship, they completed three weeks of training,
Monday-Friday, 9a-5p. Week 4 began with visits to local businesses to
show them some different types of businesses and let the women owners
encourage these girls. These visits are so very important for several
reasons. 1) The girls LOVE getting to meet the business women, 2) Many
of these girls don't know what opportunities are available to them in
the business world and 3) It gives the business women an opportunity to
reach out to the next generation. Many of these women and more have
agreed to host one of our "duhu girls" for a one month internship,
because many of these girls have little or no working experience. So we
are in the phase of matching the girl's interest with a business and
setting up interviews for them.
So that's the explanation of the logistics.
My experience of launching this program is anything but logistics. I knew from the first day I was going to love doing this, but I didn't realize how much! I am working harder and longer than I ever have before and I love every minute of it.
I got to know the girls from listening to them share in class, eating lunch with them and now chatting on facebook.
So who are these "duhu girls"?
They
are daughters and sisters, they are orphans. They are music lovers,
writers, and mathematicians. They love to dance and love to look
beautiful. They want to be loved and can't wait to be grown up. They
want to be mothers, wives, aunties. Their skin is beautiful shades of
brown and their eyes are as big and as hopeful as their dreams. They
love to throw their head back and laugh with everything inside of them.
They have their whole life in front of them and can do anything they
want.
What's our duhu-future?
We will continue to support these girls through internships and into their next step in life. There was one girl in our class who has a deep desire to reach out to others, so I have brought her on as a Duhu Outreach intern. She is going to start by developing a plan to have on-going meetings (I have been calling DuHubs) with the Duhu-alum; they want worship nights, seminars to continue learning, fun movie nights; but mostly, they just want to stay together as a group to support each other. She will also help recruit for our next cohort, launching in May. Our training in May will test another format of having two simultaneous groups of 25, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (versus 9a-5p as we did this training). There are some positives and negatives for both, so we are going to try this format to determine if we need to offer both options or select one going forward. We are still in learning mode and want to be able to provide the best possible opportunities to these young ladies.
I am working with a small team to help plan the logistic future to create a sustainable way to continue reaching out to young women in Rwanda. We are planning our next training of 50 participants and are seeking individual and grant support to fund this phase and further into the future of the program. As always, if you are interested in sponsoring a girl for our next class, you can donate online or by mail. Our next training will cost $80 per participant. We have raised $2,900 of $4,000 needed to fund our next training.
Click here to help with any part of the $1,100 needed to fully fund our next group.
A little over a month ago, we were ready to launch our first training and started quietly looking for young women 18-25 years old, who were English-speaking who would be willing to pilot our ideas. We were looking quietly because we didn't want to be inundated by girls. We selected the first cohort and were ready to start.
The first day of class (February 11) I arrived early, praying and hoping someone showed up. I laughed to see that there were girls there before I was, over an hour early. I'm not sure they really understood what they had signed up for, but they were there. I started the class of 25 young women by introducing what we were about to embark on and shared Hebrews 6:11-12 (NCV), "We want each of you to go on with the same hard work all your lives so you will surely get what you hope for. We do not want you to become lazy. Be like those who through faith and patience will receive what God has promised."
As we began the training, I established my table in the back of the room to be able to participate in as much or as little as I needed/wanted to be involved. I had hired two capable, certified trainers from the organization that developed the work-readiness curriculum and a Logistics Coordinator to make sure the trainers had everything they needed--tennis balls, flip charts, copies, markers...eggs (this is a hands on class!). Remember, labor is very inexpensive here, so what you are imaging for 3 people is probably a tenth here. I had scheduled in a couple of sessions that I was going to be facilitating called Living in God's Zone, a strengths and abilities assessment to help the girls learn how to discern what God wants for their lives. I was excited and nervous to be in front the girls.
The teaching style of this curriculum is participatory, which is something most have never experienced. The education system is very one sided, where the teacher stands in front of the class and lectures all day. So right away, they love the songs and "energizers" that get them up and moving. I love in this culture how there is always a song and a dance handy.
As the second week began, there were a few who had to drop out for various reasons, but we were at 21 strong. They were beginning to step outside of their friends they had come with and were starting to interact as a group. Team work was becoming more of an enjoyment and less of a chore. We covered topics such as Worker's Rights and Responsibilities According to the Rwandan Law and Safety and Hygiene at Work.
The last part of the second week was spent educating the girls on HIV/AIDS prevention and Gender-based Violence. This is where I need to do some explanation. First, HIV/AIDS is a huge issue in most of Africa, especially the countries surrounding Rwanda. It is still definitely an issue here and there is little education. The first session of this module is what we would consider sexual education. The trainers facilitate this part of the training in Kinyarwanda, their native tongue, because often body parts are not referred to the Kinyarwanda word and there is still a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding. For example, the majority of sexual abuse is by a family member or close friend of the family, possibly an uncle. He will call the abuse or body parts by another name and the girl doesn't realize she is being violated. So it is very important for the trainers to do this part in Kinyarwanda.
The second session is Gender-based violence education. I feel this part is the weakest of the curriculum we are using, but wanted to give it a chance. I quickly realized there is a huge gap in understanding in the culture. A rape scenario was being read from the girl's perspective and from the boy's. It was interesting because it helped the girls to understand how boys see things different and things can be miscommunicated. After the reading, it was to be discussed. Long story short, even my trainers were at a loss of how to discuss this scenario, giving opinions that are very outdated. For example, that rape is partly the girl's fault. I decided to "interject", some might say I took over the class. I started by saying that rape is never the fault of the victim. We then looked at the scenario and broke it into the various types of abuse being exhibited-emotional, physical and sexual. The girls had never heard someone openly talk about this before. We closed the session by talking about who they would go to if this was happening to them or someone they knew. They seemed to be at a loss. The culture here is still very tight-lipped about these topics. There is no relevant education in schools and the rate of teenage pregnancies is increasing at an alarming rate.
During lunch, the girls were telling me if they or someone they knew were being abused they couldn't report it because they aren't supposed to be having boyfriends in school and if they reported something they would get in trouble for having a boyfriend. This maybe partly true and partly their perspective, but either way, they feel they have no one to talk to about these issues. I'll come back to this.
So that's the explanation of the logistics.
My experience of launching this program is anything but logistics. I knew from the first day I was going to love doing this, but I didn't realize how much! I am working harder and longer than I ever have before and I love every minute of it.
I got to know the girls from listening to them share in class, eating lunch with them and now chatting on facebook.
So who are these "duhu girls"?
What's our duhu-future?
We will continue to support these girls through internships and into their next step in life. There was one girl in our class who has a deep desire to reach out to others, so I have brought her on as a Duhu Outreach intern. She is going to start by developing a plan to have on-going meetings (I have been calling DuHubs) with the Duhu-alum; they want worship nights, seminars to continue learning, fun movie nights; but mostly, they just want to stay together as a group to support each other. She will also help recruit for our next cohort, launching in May. Our training in May will test another format of having two simultaneous groups of 25, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (versus 9a-5p as we did this training). There are some positives and negatives for both, so we are going to try this format to determine if we need to offer both options or select one going forward. We are still in learning mode and want to be able to provide the best possible opportunities to these young ladies.
I am working with a small team to help plan the logistic future to create a sustainable way to continue reaching out to young women in Rwanda. We are planning our next training of 50 participants and are seeking individual and grant support to fund this phase and further into the future of the program. As always, if you are interested in sponsoring a girl for our next class, you can donate online or by mail. Our next training will cost $80 per participant. We have raised $2,900 of $4,000 needed to fund our next training.
Click here to help with any part of the $1,100 needed to fully fund our next group.
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