Meet the ARC Rwanda IGP Team!

Yesterday in Kigali the ARC Rwanda IGP team made a presentation about our work to the ARC Camp Managers, the Country Director and the Director of Finance and Administration. We had a wonderful time and of course concluded with a group photo.



In the front row you see Jean-Luc, Letitia, Madina, Devotte and Anon.

With me in the back row are Leah, Yaya, Bernard, Top, Anita, Kebe, Louise and Jennifer.

Thanks to all for your hard work and dedication. You are the best.

Family Photos.

Here are some family photos from Kiziba Refugee Camp, Rwanda. Thousands of families like this one live in the camp—and have lived here for years--unable to return to their homes in Congo because it is not safe to do so.

Thanks to the work of the American Refugee Committee, the United Nations and other organizations these families live in relative safety in the camp, with access to health care, clean water, sanitary facilities, schools and income generating activities. But what they really want is to return home—to their country, their villages, their land—and to raise their families in peace.

Take a look at the pictures and see what is familiar. A dad with his children, a mother with her baby, the whole family together in what for them is the front yard.





Now take another look and see what may not be so familiar. The way in which the family is dressed, the color of their skin, the green Rwandan hills, the laundry hung out to dry, the roofs of the refugee houses in the background.

Put these family photos next to some of your own and ask yourself, what is it, really, that makes us the same and what makes us different? Which matters more? Could this be my family? And if it were, what would we do? Where would we go? What is our future? Would anyone help us?

Kiziba Classroom.

To those of you who have seen my photos from previous trips to Rwanda, the classroom in Kiziba Camp may look familiar. In fact, much about it does remain the same--the wooden benches, the colorful clothing, the posters on the walls.

But there is also something that has changed, more difficult to see if you are not here yet very evident to me. The IGP groups that are attending our trainings are more confident, more engaged and more enthusiastic than ever. Their eyes are brighter, they look healthier and better groomed, and they are eager to talk about all of the ways in which the Income Generation Program has helped them, their families and their community.

Here are some photos from our workshop today—their first time playing the Marketing Mix Game. Anitha, our IGP Coordinator, led the class, assisted by Titia, one of our Refugee Assistants. Leah and I observed, listened and enjoyed. It was wonderful.

Bittersweet.

The news in the camps is often sad.

Today in Kiziba Camp there was a funeral for one of the members of our Income Generation Program and as we drove out of the camp we passed a nearly endless stream of mourners returning from the cemetery.

How sad to die without being able to return to one’s homeland, and yet, how affirming to see that even in this relatively isolated place where life is so difficult people still take the time to mourn those whom they have lost.

But sometimes the news is good.

Today I learned that my friend Dancille along with her whole family has been resettled to Australia. They left Kiziba Camp in December. Many, many refugees apply for such “reinstallations” as they are called but very few are given the opportunity to go. The lucky ones are often chosen based on their ability to contribute in their new home countries, by virtue of education, skills, leadership and language ability.

Dancille has all of those things. Some of you may remember her from these photos, taken in 2004, when we first met. I told you her story then, the wife of a high school principal in Congo, gracious and intelligent and warm, who fled with her family after the death of her own parents and raised six children in the camp. She also became a leader in the camp community and a great advocate and example for our program.




Dancille, I will miss you, but I am overjoyed to hear of your safe departure for a better life. May you find peace and happiness and some measure of recompense for all that you lost back in Congo.

Bon voyage.

Training of Trainers.

This is a technical term that does not begin to describe what takes place in our workshop when I hand the pen to our IGP Coordinators—Anitha, Theophile and Louise—and have them become the teachers instead of the students.

The room comes to life, chairs are gathered round, there is discussion and intensity and laughter.

Here are some photos of our group, teaching, learning, thinking, collaborating.

I am so proud of all of them and so privileged to be their colleague.

Bonne arrivée!

This is the greeting that I have heard over again today, my first day of work here in the Kigali office of the American Refugee Committee. The greeting is always accompanied by the warm smiles and embraces that I have come to love in this part of the world.

Arriving back in Rwanda feels to me very much like coming home and it is wonderful to be here. Kigali continues to modernize and improve and looks really nothing like what most people might imagine in an African country so recently at war. The streets are well tended, there are many new sidewalks, and the boulevards are filled with green grass and flowering trees. Thanks in part to a new law prohibiting the use of plastic shopping bags there is no litter to speak of, and the monthly community cleanup days have kept the whole population engaged in improving the appearance of their city.

I have started my work with a five-day workshop in Kigali with my wonderful ARC Rwanda IGP team. I also have the great good fortune of having a full-time assistant, a young American woman named Leah Elliott. She has already added a lot of energy to our work and seems excited about being part of the Income Generation Program.

No photos as yet, but will try to post some while I have a relatively speedy internet connection here in Kigali. I’ll be off to Kibuye on the shores of beautiful Lake Kivu next week.

Louise