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VSO - Sharing Skills, Changing Lives

Where we do it > Rwanda - 5 minutes with Alex Bisanukuli, Country Director

Could you briefly explain VSO’s role in Rwanda?

Rwanda underwent a terrible and awful genocide in 1994. The education infrastructure was destroyed completely and the majority of teachers were either massacred or left the country for exile. The schools were destroyed and all the equipment was looted.

At the end of 1994, the government started to rebuild the education infrastructure and it was in that process that VSO came in: invited to support in re-shaping the system and working on the aspects of quality teaching and improving access. In 1999 VSO’s agenda was focused on hosting teachers in secondary schools to teach subjects like Science and English, then later on it also realised the need for addressing management issues to ensure that the teachers and the classroom activities were supported by a system that was supportive and able to create an environment condition for learning.

What are the main challenges facing VSO Rwanda?

One major challenge to the VSO programme here in Rwanda is the huge demand for volunteers. Our partners would love to see VSO deploy hundreds of volunteers in different capacities in the country. But VSO has its own limits in terms of how many volunteers can be recruited and with which skills. We have agreed with our partners that strategically we will work with fewer but more highly skilled volunteers. We are interested in recruiting very experienced professionals who can achieve significant results in a shorter time.

The other challenge is the VSO approach to development work. Over the last few years, Rwanda has received assistance from international NGOs that have positioned themselves as donors distributing money to meet basic needs. When VSO came in it brought a different concept of development work: sharing skills and sending people to work alongside local communities. This has not always been perceived in the same way by all the stakeholders with whom we work. There is a challenge for VSO to explain our concept of development work and why our option is to share skills and distribute resources in terms of funding, money and equipment

What have been VSO's main achievements in Rwanda?

I am happy to say that over the last few years there has been a better understanding of our development work and more organisations are coming to us with requests to work with us. There is an understanding that sharing skills is fundamental to any development iniative. This allows us to learn and them to learn and that sharing of experience and sharing of skills has actually made some positive inroads in the thinking of different stakeholders of development work in Rwanda.

What would you say to individuals with concerns about volunteering in Rwanda?

I would say that Rwanda stands as the safest country in the Great Lakes region of Africa (a region that comprises Uganda, RD Congo, Rwanda and Burundi). It has enjoyed high levels of political stability over the last 10 years and a steady peace. The reality of Rwanda today is far removed from the image that comes via the media in the West. All the volunteers who have worked in Rwanda since 1999 are witnesses to this.

The country has a success story of rebuilding the social fabric and reconciling the people after the 1994 genocide. Although Rwanda remains a poor country it has a friendly culture and communities are keen to work with international development workers to tackle poverty.

Rwanda enjoys a friendly climate throughout the year, with a succession of two sunny seasons and two rainy seasons. The hilly landscape (inspring the label 'Land of Thousand Hills') offers endless views of ever green vegetation. Rwanda has a wealth of attractions, from the cleanliness of Kigali, to the wild life in Volcanoes Park (most noticeably Gorillas) and the savannah of the National Park of Akagera.

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