Branches
The one in Kigali is the mother-school and there are a few other centres around the country, always connected with a Methodist Church. A well-established one is in Rushashi, a rural area a couple of hours to the north, which we visited during our test-visit in August, while two more are only in the gestation phase, with an initial screening of disabled children conducted by Eraste some months ago; we visited one of them a few days ago (mid March) only for a big meeting with many families, to introduce the project, involving a future school and a physio programme, with training for teachers, volunteers and parents and regular, though not frequent, visits (more on that long day soon); the plan is then to pay a visit to another one, luckily closer to Kigali, in the next few weeks.
Brief overview of Elena's involvement
Elena, little by little, is assessing and treating all children with physical disabilities in the school (12) and those staying at home (which takes a long time as they live here and there, so it takes more time to reach them than to visit them).
At the same time, she's taken on the overwhelming and hyper-frustrating but absolutely necessary and extremely important task of re-shaping the whole system, by re-organizing time-tables, setting up rules and code of conduct (with the help of director Eraste, translator-assistant Steve and special advisor/counsellor Mattia), creating a training programme (starting soon), listing necessary material, supervising the building of the new physio-block (Leoni-funded) and checking the accounts and the financial and structural relationship with the major supporter (International Child Care Ministry, ICCM, a good US-based charity).
This second role, now made official by the deputy-director appointment (good move, Eraste!), is sometimes bringing her down to despair, but some home-counselling and the advice of focusing on the oh-so-positive beginnings of the physiotherapy sessions is helping to lift her back up, together with comments such those coming from the parents, who are now being involved more and more and who, at a recent meeting, admitted to being so moved as to be nearly brought to tears by seeing her working for and with their children.
Moreover, ideas and solutions keep coming to her mind, on how to work with the kids, how to improve the teachers' involvement (easy to do, as the current level is really rock-bottom), how to create assistive devices (both using paper-technology, unfortunately still waiting for the opening of our workshop, and carpentry, recently boosted by the help of a street-child's brother, somehow part of Mattia's project, and by Steve's passion and commitment), how to involve parents and provide them with training... so she's really busy and though the present seems more confusing than inspiring, we are instead very confident that the future can be bright!
The disappointment coming from the constantly hindered attempts at starting the APT (paper-technology) workshop has been one of the most discouraging aspects of these first three months, but recent developments have given us a glimpse of success, as, after several soul-destroying clashes, we've decided to abandon our hopes regarding the big container (which would have made the perfect all-in-one-place workshop) and nearly-secured the use of a smaller but similar structure, a metal hut which Mattia's always-ready workforce (the older section of the street-children gang) have quickly emptied a few mornings ago (mid March), earning some money for their lunch. Now we just need to literally "seal the deal", by asking the builder in charge of the physio-block to cover the floor (currently grass), with cement, so the container becomes "ours" once and for all; it's still a bit too small for all the APT project needs, but we've already eyed one store room in the school, so next week we'll dedicate ourselves (most likely hiring Mattia's team again), to empty that one too. After that, stay tuned for marvellous tales from Elena's cardboard kingdom!
Daily programme
8.00am = morning prayer
8.30-10.00 = lessons
10.00-10.30 = break (snack with bread&milk)
10.30-12.00 = lessons
Opening times
from 8.00am to 12.00pm, Monday to Friday
Staff
1 director, heart of the project and full-on advocate of the disabled (Pastor Eraste)
3 teachers
1 teacherfor special activities (Steve, Eraste's son, who does P.E., art, I.T. ...)
1 secretary, 1 bus-driver, 2 cleaners-cookers
and from late January... 1 Physiotherapist (now also deputy-director!) = Super-Mummy, Best-Physio-Ever, Re-organizer (see above) ELENA!
Types of Disabilities
Both mental and physical (autism, down-syndrome, Cerebral Palsy...)
Students
33 children attending + 10 home-based
General Info
Special Needs School - started in 1983; closed during the genocide, reopened soon after.
Name = "Amizero", meaning "hope".
Location = Located in the Church's compound, but actually a separate entity, unfortunately also in the church's and congregation's mind, but we'll try to work on that.
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