Teaching the Teachers

I arrived late in the town of Huye, previously known as Butare, late on Sunday and was thrust into my first lesson as an English Teacher at 8.00am next day. I have a class of around (it has varied by session) 40 teachers, of a broad range of ages, experience and knowledge of English. It's occasionally a challenge! We are working from a 2 week prepared course with plenty of scope for improvisation. We have played word games and sang, and today the class made presentations on the theme, "What I would do if I were the President of Rwanda." I heard much about the Teacher's priorities for improving the education system, the care for children and the work needed on economic development. We teach until 2pm with two half hour breaks and so there is time to visit the local area after we have finished working.
Yesterday I went to the Rwandan equivalent of the FA Cup semi final with the local team making its way to Saturday's final in Kigali on the away goals counting double rule, since both legs resulted in a draw. The local crowd went wild and it didn't seem possible that a fairly small by UK standards, crowd could make so much noise. Today I visted the Rwandan National Museum which is based here and provides a backgroung to the country's more distant history and culture.
We will be here until Friday when the course finishes and we make our way back to Kigali for a final night with the entire team on Project Umubano and our flight home on Saturday.

Soccer match

Last year I thouroghly enjoyed the match we played at the textile factory. Yesterday we went back to the community centre the contruction team completed last year. We played a rolling five aside game against a team of youngsters aged between probably 8 and 15 and I think we lost about 10-9. At one stage they were running rings around us which was pretty embarrasing considering we had three FA coaches amongst us, taking part in their own project working with the Rwandan football authorities and including Alastair Burt MP. It was great for those who had helped construct the pitch see that it is put to such regular use and we had a fun, if tiring, afternoon after the physical work earlier in the day.
Today I will be switching projects to join the teachers in Butare where I will be taking over from Nick Hurd MP who took the class last week. Never, having taught before, I am approaching this role with a degree of trepidation, although Nick tells me the students are great. I'd better get my lesson planning done!

Umuganda

Normal life comes to a halt on the last Saturday of the month in Rwanda when everyone is expected to take part in a community activity called Umuganda. Yesterday we joined a huge group of people laying a drain on a hillside, digging the trench and filliing it with rocks and stone. I joined the team mixing cement, a task which was attacked with great gusto. By the end of an hour or so I was exhausted and with hands covered in blisters. In a slightly surreal moment, just now on Sunday morning, I have been listening to Andrew Mitchell MP, the leader of our project explaining how pleased we were to be taking part. Outside where I am staying are are number of houses where the kids play outside and the radio is often on. I awoke to hear an English language station with the morning news and Andrew's dulcet tones!

Meeting the President and Ministers

On Friday I was invited to join MPs and Candidates who are in Kigali to a meeting with President Paul Kagame. This took place in the eqivalent of the cabinet office and we spent two hours talking about the five area that make up Project Umubano. A discussion took place on matters affecting Rwanda generally and in greater detail about the relationship with neighbouring Congo; the state of the official opposition and the recent banning by the Rwandan Government of the Kinywandran local language service of the BBC. In each case the President put forward a strong case for his Government's interests, putting them in the context of Rwanda's recent history and current situation. After the meeting I was able to speak to Minister of Education, Daphrosa Gahakwa in more detail about our project to help survivor students compete in the jobs market.

Norwich North

Great result; well done Chloe, although there will be a long wait to take the seat in Parliament due to the extra long recess. This result is really encouraging for the candidates with me here in Rwanda with whom I've already struck up some great friendships.

The Project Progresses

I have struggled to blog as we have been busy putting the documentation together on the advice to college leavers. There is some urgency since the document needs to be ready for printing on Sunday and on that day I leave for my teaching role in Butare in the south of the country. We have met with fomer students to learn their perspective on the recruitment process at the Groupe des Anciens Etudiants Rescapes du Genocide (Group of Former Student Survivors of Genocide). This is a well oganised group of young people who are helping one another to overcome the major difficulties they face. Our discussion moved on to politics more generally and those we met were keen to learn more about our system. I also found time to meet with one more employer, Raj Rajendran, MD of the textile manufacturer, Utexrwa, with whom I spent several days last year. It was great to see the progress the business has made in its new fields of silk production and mosquito nets as well as to find about the internships Raj is setting up in his business,

Meetings, meetings

Our project is now gathering momentum. In order to advise candidates how to best prepare for applying for jobs we have started off by meeting employers. This is to understand the recruitment process here in Rwanda and find out what is expected of applicants. So far we have met The Public Service Commission, The Rwanda Development Bank and The Rwanda Development Board from the public sector and RwandAir and MTN, an extremely progressive mobile phone company from the private sector. The next stage is to meet up with students to get their perspective on the process before pulling our ideas together and prepare a prersentation and handout. Key to our thinking is to leave behind a process by which candidates from the survivor community have an improved chance when they apply for their first position in work.

Mentoring Project

Our team met today to start work on our project. We will be providing advice on applying for jobs to young people who are survivors of the 1994 genocide and who are being supported by our friends from SURF. We met at SURF's headquarters just outside Kigali located on the site of a memorial to victims where 40,000 bodies are interred. We have a plan in place to firstly find more about the needs of local employers and the current level of knowledge of the people we are helping. We will then draw up a presentation and a toolkit to leave behind for those who follow using the broad range of skills within our group. It's good to be making a start!

Why we're here

Our projects start on Monday so there has been time to make a few visits.
Yesterday, along with PPCs, Rob Halfon (Harlow), Wendy Morton (Tynemouth) and aspiring PPC Karen Robson I visited the orphan's school where the first building project took place two years ago. We were shown around by Director, Eugene, and Wendy who proudly pointed out the wall she had painted. The school accommodates 200+ children and is working hard to generate funds for more badly needed facilities. It was a timely reminder of why we are here.

Project Umubano 2009

The first part of the group from the Conservatives working in Rwanda this year arrived in the capital city Kigali yesterday evening and we will be joined by others on Saturday. I will be in Rwanda for the first week working on the mentoring project and next weekend I will transfer to Butare in the south of the country where I will be teaching English. It's a year since I was last here & have already noticed a number of new buildings where construction has finished but in many ways it seems I was only here a few weeks ago. The sounds and smells, and the air of relaxed commotion (if that's not a contradiction) hit me immediately as we came though the airport and on the bus journey to our accomodation. We have a couple of day to acclimatise and then the briefings and meetings begin.

Bulkington Carnival

Today I joined hundreds of people at Bulkington's Annual Carnival. It's great that a small community has kept a traditional carnival alive when in so many other places they have fallen by the wayside. The floats are superbly constructed and clearly are a labour of love. The children on them were having a whale of a time as they fished for coins with their nets.

Norwich North By-Election

I am fortunate to have two sixth form leavers working on my campaign at the moment. Both have just finished their A Levels and intend studying Politics at University. Ian is taking a year out and so will be with us throught the run up to the General Election while Tom is starting Uni this September. On Thursday we went to help in Chloe Smith's campaign in Norwich North following the decision of the sitting Labour MP to stand down in the wake of the expenses scandal. We delivered hundreds of leaflets and it was good for Ian & Tom to see a highly professional campaign with plenty of people out on the streets.

House meeting

Last week I joined a group of young mums for a chat about general matters of concern to them. I believe that there is a new interest in politics, partly as a consequence of the MP's expenses issue. The idea is for people to be able to question me about my ideas and motivation as well as for me to hear more about their thoughts on the issues that are important. With the people I met at Emma's house, amongst other things, we spoke about what makes Rugby a good place to live and the impact of the new housing proposals; the lack of bus services on the recently built housing estates and the cost of public transport; the pressure some young mothers feel under to return to work earlier than they might like linked to the difficulty in keeping up with developments in a career while bringing up children. I enjoyed hearing things from a different perspective and hope to hold more house meetings in the future. Please let me know if there is anyone who would like me to visit & chat in this way (assuming they are resident in the new Rugby constituency!)

Chief Whip in Rugby

On Sunday at a summer event in one of our villages our guest speaker was Patrick McLouglin MP. We had a great turnout and were treated to an assesment of the likely developments at Westminster over the coming months. As a thank you for visiting Rugby, I presented Patrick with a ball produced in honour of the Lions tour to South Africa (and had the Lions not won on Saturday would have had to find something else). A Rugby ball is the best gift we can offer, as we are the only town with an international sport named after it. Have you ever heard of a game called Milton Keynes?

Great Game & Great Result

The final Lions test gave us what we wanted - restored pride! The result came from what was clearly a superb spirit running throughout the squad. You have to take your hat off to the coaching team to take players from four countries and mould them into a team in short a short space of time. As a schoolboy I remember listening on the radio in the middle of the night to the test matches on the 71 Lions tour of New Zealand, when my hero at that time, David Duckham was playing. Then tours were much longer which gave more time for a team to come together. That the Lions did so well after a handful of games and at the end of a tiring season is a tribute to all involved. It's important for the Lions concept, unique in professional sport today, to keep going. Looking forward to the next tour in four years time!

Urban Design

Having spent two days last week at the Mast Site Design Enquiry I have just returned from a short break in Milan where I saw some of the best classical and some not so good urban design. The best is in the formal squares and the Galeria shown in the photo, where even the McDonalds reataurant added to the ambiance. The not so good is the stret clutter with moped and scooters left just about anywhere, the shortage of green space and the graffiti. The food we ate was fantastic athough at just over one Euro to the Pound pretty expensive and an indication of why many people will be holidaying at home this year.