Suffering... or rejoicing?

"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds"

SKids update

Check their page for all you need to know about the last five weeks of the project (start way below, around 9 sections down).

AMIZERO

(this was originally uploaded as a stand-alone page, updated now and then, so you should start reading from the bottom!)

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.

Women Stories.2

One night Mattia was walking up the hill to do some late evening shopping, when he met Olivier, one of the SKids, with the usual double-sided expression: happy and smiling on the surface, worried underneath. He was going back home, where, as he answered to the useless question, there was no food, so Mattia bought a couple of mangoes and decided to walk him home. It was a long way, from dirt roads to rocky paths, from small shops' dim lights to moonlit alleyways to utter darkness, slowly following the boys' steps and trying not to fall, but at the end we reached a mud-brick house at the end of the neighbourhood, among other similar houses, some overgrown bushes and a few banana trees. By it was quite late, nearly 10.00pm, but Olivier wanted Mattia to meet his mum, so after a little banging on the front and then back door, finally a lady with a baby in her arms appeared to thank  for food and receive the good news that her boy would soon be taken back to school. Kindly enough, Olivier insisted to take Mattia back to the main road, which was definitely necessary, at least for the first dark bit.

A few days later Mattia took Eraste along the same path, which by the way is just two roads down from a very rich neighbourhood, where the Bishop and the Executive Secretary live, and nearly made it to the house without help, then Olivier heard them and came to the rescue, though Mattia in the meantime had found the way...

This time there was time, and most of all a mother-tongue speaker, to find out more about the family and we understood the story was not going to be nice when the mother sent Olivier and his younger brother away, something quite rare, as usually kids are tolerated, and not considered as present...

Angelique let us sit outside the house, on a low bench along the mud-wall, then sat on a mat, breastfeeding her young baby, and started telling: her husband used to beat her everyday, even to point of causing an inch-long scar on her wrist, and her mother-in-law didn't like her either, to the point of chasing her out of her land; so away she went, with a two-year-old Olivier and his older sister. Now she lives there, paying rent, even more than Mugisha's mother (see post below), or better having to pay rent, because with no work how can she pay anything? She used to sell some fruit around, like many women do, for example bananas from the trees behind the house, but she was nearly caught by the police (or maybe actually caught and beaten... who knows?) and she doesn't seem very keen on trying again; so, how are they surviving? Well, she didn't go into the details, but think of the two aforementioned kids, both younger than Olivier and the answer is easy, the same we got from the lady in our previous story. Luckily we managed to understand she's got no AIDS, but the situation is still quite grim: her oldest daughter seems to be in secondary school (so she's getting food) thanks to some other support, now Olivier is in primary, with everything paid for, but there are still herself, two boys and a baby to provide for, with no desirable source of income. 

Some time later Mattia took another night stroll with Olivier, to take 10kg of rice to Angelique, so for  three or four weeks they'll be OK, then we'll see...

Women's stories.1

Rwanda is economically in a much better state, especially according to statistics, than many other African countries and women enjoy a good situation, much better than in many other African or developing countries, from general freedom to representation in parliament, with one of the highest rates in the continent. 

Yet, just as at ground level poverty is still a big issue for millions (more on this some other time),  women are not completely out of danger as they should, so starting on this special day we want to dedicate a few posts to all those who are still suffering because of the other gender, at times incredibly selfish and inhuman, and we'll do that by sharing some sad or tragic stories of women Mattia's met during his work with street children.

One of his first descent from tragedies in literature or in written accounts to real-life, "live" tragedies, occurred on the very first family visit (not a bad start!), when together with Eraste he walked minutes and minutes away from the tarmac road, from dirt road to dirt road, deep into that other world that can be easily forgotten not only by living or spending time in "town" but also simply keeping to the main streets. They visited Mugisha's home and met his mum, who welcomed them into their house: a small dark room with a bed screened by a curtain falling to pieces, a table with a few chairs and a rough cut opening on the wall allowing access to the second room, which serves as a kitchen... all rented for the equivalent of 10GBP, which is an astronomical amount for the earning opportunities of that lady. For the benefits of the two visitors, who were bringing the good news that her son's school fees were going to be paid the next Monday, she told her story: her husband died in an accident when she was 4 months pregnant, sometimes she finds some work at a coffee factory, at 80p per day, but like workers in Europe's old past they just get chosen from a large number of people in the morning, so she gets it only quite occasionally. She is also into crafts, creating plant-fibre baskets and plates (the typical Rwanda artisan products), necklaces, bracelets and other low cost jewellery, but it's not easy to find a market for these things, as they're quite common, the poor area where they live is definitely not full of craft buyers and going to town, where rich locals and western people live, is risky for street-vendor, as they're illegal and could be threatened, chased or even beaten up and/or jailed by the police (it's not just a legend, we've actually seen young uniformed guys enjoying a jump from the back of their police pick-up to chase a basket-headed woman with their baton and a disgusting smile on their face). Question? How can she pay that rent? First of all, she's not doing it regularly, so it's not a secure position they're in, and when she does, the money comes from selling the only other commodity she's got: herself! Though ashamed of it, she didn't shy away from telling it and when Eraste translated it, Mattia understood with shock why Deo, the street-child at his side, a friend of her son sitting there with us, laughed while she told the last bit: different culture, they're just kids...? Mattia didn't care and Deo got his rebuking anyway. 

Sad enough? No, because prostitution comes not only with guilt and shame, but with AIDS, too. Luckily, in Rwanda ARVs are free, so she's OK... or not, because she's been diagnosed only recently and she hasn't managed to overcome the shame effect yet, so she hasn't started treatment, which we tried to discuss with her, encouraging her quite strongly. She then thanked us heartily and walked us away, as the custom goes in Rwanda, where people always come along with you for a little.

At the moment we're only supporting her son in school, but we hope to be able to find some ways of helping her to sustain herself and Mugisha, possibly finding a cleaning job (as if there weren't other women trying to get one...) or a way of marketing her crafts, maybe outside the church on Sunday mornings (as if the community were eagerly waiting to have something like that...).