1 Week to go

Wow, that's gone quickly. One week today and I'll be on my way to Burundi! Really looking forward to this now. I've been in pretty much constant contact with Josias the sponsorship manager over there, he's been great and has organised me some accommodation while I am over there.

I'm frantically reading through my Kirundi phrase book. Quite difficult to learn when you are not using it. I'm sure Josias will help sort that out for me when I get over there. Amohoro is the main greeting which I think translates to peace... and Urakoze is thank you and I'm struggling with please.... Ndakwinginze... not sure about the pronunciation of that one!

Some useful Kirundi:

Yes:                  ego
No:                   oya
Thank you:        urakoze
Please:              ndakwinginze
Good morning:   bgakeye
Good afternoon: Mwiriwe
Good Night:       Ijoro ryiza
How are you?     N'amohoro
I'm fine:            N'ameza
Sir:                   bwana
Madam:             madamu
My name is..      nitwa
Excuse me...      Nigiria ikigongwe
What's up?         Gute? (familiar)

One:                  rimwe
Two:                  kabiri
Three:               gatatu
Four:                 kane
Five:                  gatanu
Six:                   gatandatu
Seven:               indwi
Eight:                umunani
Nine:                 icenda
Ten:                  icumi

The days seem to run with the numbers...

Sunday:            Kuw'Imana
Monday:            Kuwa mbere
Tuesday:           Kuwa kabiri
Wednesday:      Kuwa gatatu
Thursday:          Kuwa kane
Friday:              kuwa gatanu
Saturday:          kuwa gatandatu

Today:               uyu musi
Tomorrow:         ejo
Yesterday:          ejo
Soon:                vuba
Right now:         nonaha
Now:                 uba

Goat:                impene
Chicken:            inkoko

and my favourites...

August:             Myandagaro, kuwezi kwa munani (phew!)
Witch doctor fee: ingemu

Off shopping now to get a few more things in. Very busy at work at the moment so I'm not going to get any other chance... best get on with it.

Saturday June 8th - Departure Day

So todays the day. I'm off! Heading down to Heathrow T4 this afternoon to catch my flight to Nairobi at 8pm this evening. I have a short connection to Bujumbura getting me into Burundi at about 9:00am on Sunday morning.

This is my itinerary for my visit which has been arranged by ActionAid Burundi (AAB)

Days/Date	Time	Activity
Sunday-09 June	9:15 AM	Arrival of Mark
Monday-10 June	10:00 am-12:30 pm	Meeting with CMT
	2:00-5:00pm	Introdution of Mark on Sponsorhip business and procedures
Tuesday-11 June	8:00-11:00am	Travelling from Bujumbura to Ruyigi
	Open	Visit Mpame primary school
		Visit to Donatien's Family
		Meeting with AA staff in Ruyigi
Wednesday-12 June	Open	Meet  the Ruyigi Govorner
		To participate in School competition activities; Participate in reflect cycle sessions, PRS training
Thursday-13 June	Open	Participate in the collection of information for start up report (of LRP5) in Bweru; Visit Kenyerazigume Association
Friday-14 June	Open	Visit different partners (Youth  Association in Muriza, Garukira Agateka K'umupfakazi Association, AEAP Nyarurambi, Reflect facilitators in Bigera, )
Saturday-15 June	Open	Visit Karama PTA
		Visit Ruvubu Park
		Debriefying/wrap up the visit with Ruyigi staff
Sunday-16June	Open	Participate in the  celebration of the day of African child; Meet Donatien to say good bye
		Travell back to Bujumbura
Monday-17June	9:00-11:00 am	Participate in different sponsorship activities at Head office
Tuesday-18 June	Open	Share feed back on the visit with CMT
		Travel back to UK

Sunday June 9th - Arrive Burundi

Arrive Burundi

You fly into Bujumbura by crossing some mountains then a very sudden and near perfect plain appears. Very spectacular. The airport sits on the northern edge of capital.

I was pretty tired after the trip having not been able to sleep but that aside, even though it was a modest 21 c at 9 in the morning, you are immediately hit by the humidity of this lovely little green country. I was picked up by Chrysanthe Ndayizeye.

Chrysanthe is from the Action Aid Head Office in Bujumbura. He kindly dropped me off at the hotel via a quick drive down to the lake to show me some of the sites and a bit more of the town.

Josias (whos name I have been pronouncing wrongly all this time - should be Joss-ee-as) met me at the hotel and this is where the trip really begins. Josias Ogden has been with ActionAid for 4 years, 2 of which he has held the responsibility of Sponsorship Manager.

Visit 1 - The University of Burundi.

The university is situated on the top of a hill overlooking Bujumbura.

It holds approximately 6 thousand students who receive a place by passing there National Exams. Their tuition fee is entirely paid for by the government, something the UK could learn a thing or two about. A system where you have to work and study hard for your university placement sounds extremely sensible to me. Thing is - this only applies to those who are in the education system. The extremely poor can't get anywhere near these facilities and that's what we are off to learn a bit more about on Tuesday by heading east to the Ruyigi province.

A view of Bujumbura from the University

The Sponsorship Programme

The way that ActionAid and in fact the Burundi government operate the sponsorship programme begins with the Burundi government itself using its own research, stats and analysis to point ActionAid towards the areas of concern. ActionAid then moves into the area and starts off by arranging meetings with the community leaders as well as othe local organisations, to gain a local opinion on what they actually need.

In brief, this is where the project is established, for example; in the scenario they are building a school, ActionAid begin training the community to run and take responsibility for the project themselves. Show's them how to source builders etc. and whatever is needed to fulfil the project.

 It's clever. The community gets to implement its own project with funds supplied by ActionAid and Actionaid empowers the community to help themselves. The child sponsorship comes in to fund project by sponsoring the children using the school. ActionAid refers to sponsored children as ambassadors, which I quite like. I'm sure this section is going to get edited and grow quite a bit as I learn more about the whole thing during my visit.

Monday June 10th - Country Management Team Meeting

Meeting With CMT at ActionAid Head Office Bujumbura

There are 5 LRP's (Local Rights Program's) and these are funded by different countries;

Karusi - UK

Rutana - Italy

Mpinga - Italy

Butaganzwa - UK

Bweru - USA + Brazil

 

Meeting with CMT (Country Management Team).

The head office at Bujumbura has about 17 staff. Each member of staff has a critical role in the organisation ranging from finance to sponsorship management. I had the pleasure of meeting the Country Director Emime Ndihokubwayo, who with the CMT, gave me a concise overview of operations in Burundi.

 ActionAid started in Burundi in 1976 and began the sponsorship program. In 1993 the conflict started. The assassination of Burundi’s first democratically elected and first Hutu President, Melchior Ndadaye, led to widespread ethnic violence. Around 200,000 people died in the fighting, which also sparked an unprecedented refugee crisis.

In 1993, Burundi's first democratically elected president Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated by Tutsi extremists. As a result of the murder, violence broke out between the two groups, and an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people died within a year with countless displaced from their homes. Currently in Karusi there are still approximate 5000 people living in refugee camps to scared to go back home. 

Out of the 8000 sponsors, 4000 switched to Mozambique. The money coming in from sponsorship was then redirected from a long term strategy to a more reactive approach providing medical and resettlement aid. The conflict ended in 2007 and the sponsorship program reverted back to the more long term strategy enabling the communities to help themselves.

ActionAid works with the local authorities and other local organisations to implement locally requested projects such as new schools. ActionAid acts as a mediator for this process, training and empowering the community to execute the project themselves. Ruyigi, the province I am visiting tomorrow, was the first of them to be set up.

ActionAid play a big part with Education, meeting with the education minister to provide advice to the government.  A new 3 point strategy is being implemented this year.

1. Women In Agriculture.
1. Women make up 80% of the agriculture work force but have no legal rights to own land or property. ActionAid are working towards empowering women so that by 2018 30,000 women and girls can realise their rights to food and sustainable livelihoods.
2. Public Quality Education
1. By 2018 8000 boys and 7000 girls will have access to improved quality education in 45 elementary schools in the 5 LRP's.
3. Public Service Provision - Making sure taxes are being used correctly.
1. Empower poor and marginalised people to participate in the governance process and demand accountability from the government in the delivery of public services.

Over 7000 Sponsors from around the world sponsor children in Burundi, the majority from the UK. Child sponsorship makes up 80% of ActionaAid's income with the last 20% coming from what they call 'Additional Income' or High Value Funding. These are contributions from organisations or companies.

Sponsors are not just seen as a source of income but are encouraged to give feedback on the issues which ActionAid deal with on a daily basis. A key thing that was pointed out to me was that the money which is given by the sponsor does not go directly to the child but it does go to the child's immediate community. I think this is important as you couldn't have a community where only half the children are sponsored, this would cause jealousy and resentment and conflict within the very community that the sponsor was trying to help.

The money given by the sponsor is broken down with 70% going to the community, 10% pays for the sponsorship programme, salaries, correspondence etc. 10% goes to ActionAid Burundi to deal with issues on a national level and 10% for flexible spending, allowing ActionAid to switch funds to areas outside the target community which need aid the most. I immediately warmed to the transparency and approach of AAB (ActionAid Burundi). As a sponsor you can see where your contribution is going straight away and also it is easy to appreciate how well the funds which are available to ActionAid are being managed and spent. The children that are sponsored are seen as ambassadors of the community. I like this approach. Amongst other things this must give the child a sense of involvement that they would of otherwise not received.

There was an enormous amount of information given to me during the CMT meeting, some of which I have touched on. I will do my best do document all that I could take in. The team were extremely knowledgeable in their areas and keen to inform me about the different challenges they are presented with. I felt very privileged to be a part of the meeting. 

Tuesday June 11th - Travel To Ruyigi Meet Donatien and Community

Travelling To Ruiyigi, Visit Donatien School and meet his parents

Another lovely morning in Bujumbura. It's just after seven so I'm grabbing some breakfast before we travel to the east of the country to Butaganzwa in the Province of Ruyigi.

An Incredible Day

The drive up to Ruyigi was spectacular. You start off with an hours climb up the mountains. Locals hurtle down the hill coming towards you on bikes, heavily laden with goods to sell in Bujumbura. I was just asking the guys how the cyclist get back home as the hills were far too steep to cycle, when my question was answered, they basically hold onto the back of the lorries crawling slowly up the hills. As soon as you are out of town, the banana plantations begin and they're all over the place. With agriculture being the main source of income for the majority of the country, Burundians efficiently farm every square inch they can.

An amazing thing about the 3 hour journey was that the roads were lined with locals walking or cycling for the entire journey, I can't remember a stretch of road without anyone on! The journey out to Ruyigi was really interesting. The landscape changes the further East you go. You start off on the plain where Bujumbura sits and the you climb quite steeply into the mountains. As you continue down the road mountains become more rolling hills with the valleys opening out giving way to more rice fields.

We arrived at the ActionAid offices and quickly organised the gifts I had bought between what was going to Donatien and his family and what was going to the school. The whole point of ActionAid is helping the entire community, so even by  sponsoring a single child, your money that you give goes to the entire community in the form of projects managed by ActionAid, not to the single child. That would cause all sorts of resentment and conflicts within the community.

We headed off to Mpame Primary School where we were given a warm welcome by the children when we turned up.

Arriving at Mpame Primary school

 I was introduced to the headmaster, who told me all about the school and it's recent achievements, one of which being named the best school in the province. He then went and got Donatien, the lad I sponsor. And what a wonderful little lad he was. Naturally very shy and apprehensive about all of this he came over and we were formally introduced. Lovely little lad, soon had a smile on his face.

 Meeting Donatien for the first time

I'd brought with gifts for Donatien and his family as well as some gifts for his schoolmates, little things, rulers pens, pencils, notebooks and as many sweets as my 43kg allowace on Kenya Airways allowed and I'm so glad I did. Every child in the school (300) got a sweet and I handed over the gifts to the headmaster and his teachers to distribute as we went from class to class.

Donatien

Me, the AA team and Teachers

distributing gifts at the school.

When we were finished we jumped back into the ActionAid truck this time taking Donatien with us to head into his village (a few miles away, which he walks every day). This is where the villagers response to my visit took me back to the point where I am still amazed at one of the most incredible days of my life.

We were greeted by 30 or 40 villages who I was informed by Josias had just planted new Banana plants in a gesture to welcome me. That was touching enough but as we approached the village the crowd got bigger. Locals had come from the surrounding village to welcome me, to the tune of about 300 people! Yes 300 people.  I'm a sponsor from ActionAid, no more no less but was given a welcome like I've never seen before. What an amazing people the Burundians are. This was truly an incredible day.

Neighbours gathering to welcome me at

Donatien's house.

Sharing a traditionally made drink with Donatien

 An area had been cleared next to Donatiens house with tables and chairs laid out under a constructed shade. I had the pleasure of meeting the area leader and other key figures within the community. We then all sat down to a beautiful lunch of beans (the Burundi staple), roasted green bananas, rice and peas, all fresh and one of the nicest meals I've had in a long time.

After we ate, I was officially welcomed to Mpame village and after a few speeches were made by the village officials and the ActionAid guys, I handed over my gifts to Donatien which seemed to be very well received.

I was invited into Donatien's house. It's a simple red clay brick structure with a reed / bamboo tiled roof. There is no electricity and the house is separated into two main rooms by a dark passageway. The room on the left as you walked in contained a fire with an area for preparing food, with the main living quarters on the right with neat bowls of food laid out from the preparation of our meal. The clay bricks and the dirt floor meant the temperature inside was very cool compared to the outside.

 Inside Donatien's house

I'm no writer as you can tell so I don't know how to describe the impact that that welcome had on me, from the work that had gone into erecting the cloth sun shades, preparing what was a lovely meal, to the warm and welcoming speeches made especially from Donatien's father who like me was completely out of his comfort zone. What really amazes me is the ability of these people to keep smiling even when life and the challenges which are thrown at them are so difficult. They really are amazing.

 Women and children gathering in the home of 
Donatien  to welcome me

One thing which was mentioned a number of times during my visit to Mpame village was water. Or rather the fact that they have to walk up to 2 miles to collect it. 2 miles with a jerican of water is no easy task. So this got me thinking. Putting a water supply into Mpame would improve the lives of hundreds of people. I need to research this but this could be the project I was looking for out here. Aparently the cost would be around £20,000. Another ActionAid sponsor asked them to look into this and they put the project together and priced it up but nothing came of it. I need to research this carefully to make sure that that doesn't happen again.

Another thing that has become apparent is the injustice done to Burundi by the Foreign Office website which basically states… 'Danger, do not travel there.' This doesn't reflect the country that I have seen. There is a good police presence in Bujumbura and the surrounding towns and you are able to walk freely without danger even as an umuzungu (white man). I'm sure there are bad pennies in any bunch but every last one of the Burundian people I have met have been jolly, polite people. That said,  I guess caution and common sense should be applied when travelling to any foreign country, but I would also say the same thing about London or any other city in Europe.

I've been told that I am the very first ActionAid sponsor to visit Burundi. Given the foreign office website and the fact that the majority of the ActionAid sponsors are from the UK that is not too surprising but I think that needs to change. The experience I have had has been absolutely incredible and extremely rewarding. I've been talking with Josias of ways we can set up a Facebook page or even a dedicated website to provide information for some of the other ActionAid sponsors, on how to go about this.

I'm updating this blog from a Internet Café in Ruyigi, so as a sponsor if you are thinking of coming there are facilities, however, within 45 mintutes drive of Ruyigi, in the villages we have visited, it is quite a different story.

Goats!

Bought two goats from the market today as a gift for Donatien and his mum. They'll use them for milk and fertiliser and will keep them going for a while. I've named them Bindu and Helen.

Bindu

Helen

(Note: Sorry if I haven't replied to any emails I am receiving ok but can't send)

Wednesday June 12th

We are staying in a small Hotel in a secure compound in the middle of Ruyigi only a 10 minute walk to the ActionAid office.

Presentation

In the morning I was given a detailed presentation of what ActionAid do, what they have achieved so far and how they impact the community. Very enlightening. I was hugely impressed about the transparency of how they work. I was told what assets are owned by actionaid, who is employed on what basis and for why and shown the budget. It doesn't get any clearer than that. The bottom line is they do unbelievably good work on a very limited budget.

ActionAid have changed their strategy from a reactive relief giving organisation to a long term strategy. They call it HRBA, which is simply Human Rights Based Approach. What this means is they empower the community with training and education and encourage self-help. That said they do combine this long term with some immediate support.

The present described many of the achievements of actionaid so far in Burundi, these include;

  

• Building new schools, over 30.
• Setting up granaries to supply cheap seeds.
• Associations Established; (Networks of people trained to help themselves)
• Saferu - Network of Women -164 Association members
• CADEC - Food Security - 147 Association Members
• REFARA - Reflect - Adult Learning
• Reseau - PTA
• RAAP - Food Security

3500 women and girls participated in sessions to teach about domestic violence with a proportion taking their cases forward and supported by ActionAid

Communities taking more ownership, running schools on their own. 

I've barely touched on the achievements, I am going to try and get a document from the action aid guys, they have them but they will need translating from French!

School Competitions

After the presentation we headed off to one of the local schools (built by actionaid) to watch the semi-finals of the local school competitions, the finals of which we will be watching on International Day of the African Child this Sunday June 16th. We watched a game of football by the boys followed by a dancing competition by the girls, very impressive. The football was played for most in bare feet on a pitch that wasn't a pitch but an uneven plot of land in the middle of the school.

The incredible part of all this bit was that it was the brainchild of Josias, the ActionAid sponsorship manager who has been with me all this time. The games were now in their second year and getting better each time. He had come up with the idea and presented it to the schools who followed up his idea and arranged the games. A great achievement for Josias, the schools and ActionAid. The aim of the games is to promote cohesion amongst children in the community, create awareness around issues that are affecting child rights and to promote child sponsorship for all children in the community.

Reflect Centre Visit

We headed back down to Butaganzwa to one of the Reflect buildings. One of around 40 built by action aid in the area. I had the Reflect centre explained to me but it wasn't until we visited did it's true purpose become apparent. to describe them, the reflect building are circular huts about 20 feet across with walls reaching about head height and post supporting a timber framed roof. They have benches arranged in a circle for the members to sit.

The purpose of a reflect centre is to teach literacy to the community and also agricultural or topical issues. Those who wish to join the program start a six month training course where they are taught to read and write as well as agricultural related info. The session we attended was teaching crop to prioritisation, at what time of the year as well as how to read and write the crop names. It also gives the community a chance to ask their own questions, raise initiatives or voice concerns. One which was raised for me was very relevant to the other sponsors back in the UK. There was a show of hands of how many parents that were attending this session had sponsored children, which was about half. One local man raised the point that because some sponsors don't send photos or even write, the children feel incredibly left out when they see others that do. It was an eye opener to see the impact that the sponsor letters has on the community first hand.

Once the six months training is up the members who were trained become their own association who can ask Action Aid for support for different initiatives. An example given to me was that sometimes land is not that fertile so they can ask action aid for a cow so they can use it's manure to increase their harvest.

Another role of the Reflect group is to Act as a self-funding micro finance source. To be a member of the Reflect Centre we visited, they started an initiative where members pay 500BF (20p) per week to the a fund which is then available to give as loans to a single member who has a particular challenge or initiative. The money is paid back with a 10% interest added, increasing the fund available to the community each time. These have been used for buying books for children to go to school during a period while a family is waiting for harvest to sell their produce. This seemed to be a perfect example of how Action Aid's HRBA works.

Thursday June 13th

 Meeting with Ruyigi Govenor - Cyriaque Nshimirimana


The Ruyigi Action Aid team and I headed over the Governor's office first thing in the morning. We queued outside the Governor's office and watched various groups of people go in and out. When he was ready Cryiaque came and got us and invited us in.
 
I'm sure you know by now Burundi's main language is Kirundi however French is the main for those fortunate enough to have an education and Cyriaque is certainly one of them. On his wall is a plaque from the Burundi President for his services to the community. No surprises here, another outstanding Burudian, anyway.. the Governor… is a French speaker so as he spoke to me and told me all about the challenges that his country have faced during and after the war, Josias translated for me.



Cyriaque told me about how there was a vision by 2025 to establish quality education and food security and that now the war was over and the country was at peace it was a time for everyone work and work as hard as they can. He told me how he appreciated the work that Action Aid does and believes himself that to begin to help the country you need to start at the family level which again falls in line with Action Aid's Human Rights Based Approach, which the more I understand, the more I appreciate its simple brilliance, but I'll come back to that. 

I told the Governor that when I went to visit Donatien in his village, I was asked many times if ActionAid could provide a water supply as they do not have one and have to travel in some cases miles to get it. One thing I haven't explained is the number of people that this will help, this won't just be a few hundred this will provide water to all the surrounding villages. This will help thousands.


I asked him if we started a micro project to get a water supply put into his village how he and the government could support it. He told me that any labour required to lay the pipe would be free and any construction supplies required, cement etc would not be taxed. Cyriaque endorsed our micro project and gave it his full support. Excellent. I think we have a project!

Action Aid are putting together the information we need and we will go from there. This includes maps of current water suppliers and the target area to get the water to. ActionAid's initial estimate was around £20,000 to put the pipe in but that was without the Governor's contributions, so we will have to work out how much it is going to cost and get raising some money! 

Although Cyriaque's words were interpreted for me I can see that he believed passionately about everything he was saying and quite frankly I do too, that's why I'm here. Cyriaque thanked me personally for my support and asked me to spread the word to other sponsors to come over and visit their sponsored children which I will wholeheartedly and endorse 100%. 

If you are a sponsor and reading this from one Burundi's supporting countries like the UK, Italy, USA or Brazil then ask you to kindly consider two things please; Firstly, please write to your ActionAid child. It means so much to them and also please send photo's, this is very important, the children and their families love this, it gives them some connection to the outside world and show's that someone else cares about their situation. Secondly, get over here to Burundi. It is one of the most beautiful countries with a wonderful people. The people's ability to smile through adversity is like I have never seen before and the truly amazing thing is they want to help themselves so much, they just need a helping hand.


If you are interested in going to visit your ActionAid child in Burundi feel free to contact the ActionAid team or myself and I will give whatever advice I can.

Kenyerazigume Associations - Farmers Association Visit

After the meeting with the Governor we headed over to Bweru which is about 30km east of Ruyigi. We met with the head of the farmers network Pierre who gave us a briefing on what had been going on with the farmer's association. This is another association I didn't understand fully until I saw it and had it explained to me first hand.

Pierre, the head of the Farmers Network.

 

 

 

To summarise this, the associations main purpose is a granary. The problem that the granary resolves is that business men were buying all the seeds from the market and farmers weren't keeping any of the harvest back for sowing. When it came round to sowing seeds the price of them were high as they were more scarce and the businessmen could charge what they wished.
 
ActionAid has trained up team of local farmers to create an association and given them support by giving them land for farming and funding for the granary. Farmers are then informed, normally via the church, when to take their seeds to the granary to be sold. The granary gets first priority on all the seeds, any leftover can be sold to businessmen etc. When it comes round to sowing time again. The farmers buy back the seeds from the granary at a very slightly higher cost which covers the granaries cost of the treatment that have been applied to the seeds for storage.


Bweru - Kirambi School Visit - ActionAid Information gathering
We arrived at the school to shouts I was getting quite use to now. I'm getting a T-Shirt for my next visit with 'Umuzungu' (White man) on it. The way the kids shout it is hilarious, they just run off shouting 'moooooo-zunnnnnn-guuuuuuu!!!!'

 
The purpose of this visit was for Josias to gather feedback from some newly sponsored children of their thoughts on their sponsorship so far. I stayed out of the way for that and decided to have a bit of a game with the 30 or 40 kids that had surrounded me. I started taking their pictures on my digital camera but then showing a picture of themselves on the screen on the back of the camera. Well this caused them to fall about laughing, they loved this.
 

Bweru - Information gathering
When Josias had finished with his work we headed off to stop in a lady to gather some information on how a women's work is so much harder than a man's. I haven't gone into this yet but the Burundi women are incredible. Traditionally, I hate to say it, but the men let the women do the hard work. This is changing with education but has no way been eliminated yet.

 
The lady we stopped into see was a 54 year old mother of four called Adrienne, she told us her routine. She gets up at 5:00am to light a fire and cook the children and husband breakfast. She then goes to the fields for cultivation ten at 1:00pm return to the house to cook lunch then heads back out to collect firewood for the next day plus more time in the fields. The husband gets up last goes to the field then doesn't work in the afternoon. He goes for a walk. As I said though this is been reduced with education but these women are amazing, they more often than not will do this with a baby strapped to their backs. 

Adrienne and her family in Bweru

Just when we were about to leave Josias wanted to gather some information on the challenges presented to carrying water back to the home. This is where we met little one of Adrienne's children Alan.

Alan

 

 

 
This little fella was lovely, brandishing a cheeky Burundian smile. I'm not sure whether I'm meant to say this but don't feel sorry for him. He was a happy little lad who a has a wonderful mum and lived near a water supply which thousands and thousands don't. All you see along the roads and tracks are people carrying water, people of all ages from not long after they can walk to the elderly...and they have to carry for miles at a time.

Josias spoke to the girls also and they showed us how they carried jerican's of water on their heads.

Climate affected crop
We then headed back to the Farmers Association to meet a lady who had a crop suffer because of drought. She showed us the plot of land where her beans had not grown more than a foot high and dug some soil to show how dry it was.
 

Bakery
On the way back to Ruyigi we stopped off at a small street bakery located beside a government youth centre which had been funded by ActionAid. We got to taste the bread which was just perfect and are sold for 5p each.

I'll post pictures on Sunday...

Friday June 14th

PRS Visit - Butaganzwa Commune

 

The first visit of the day was to a PRS (Promoting Rights to Schools) session going on in the Butaganzwa commune. These sessions are for teachers, community facilitators, PTA members and some students with each village in the area having a representative at the PRS session. 

Charlotte

The session we attended was delivered by Charlotte, the person responsible for education in actionaid who I first met back at the CMT meeting in Bujumbura on the first day. 

A teacher attending the PRS Training

The session was the last full day out of a three day course, as ever, Josias interpreted for me. Charlotte had the members of the session complete engaged in what they were learning with some of them participating in role playing exercises to demonstrate some of the key points trained. There are of these;

  

1. Right to free education
2. Right to no discrimination
3. Right to accessible and adequate school structure
4. Right to professional teaching
5. Right to protective non-violent environment
6. Right to appropriate education
7. Right to know their own rights
8. Right to participate in decision making
9. Right to a responsible and transparent school
10. Right to quality learning.

This is a cascade training approach where the members who attended the PRS session will go back to their communities and pass this training on. This way one PRS session can reach a very large audience.

  

Bigera - PTA Butaganzwa

Parent Teacher Associations are set up to run schools. Again, ActionAid train them up and empower them to help themselves and manage the school and it's needs. The school we visited had 443 pupils in 8 class rooms, 302 of which are boys.

The PTA itself consists of 32 members, 10 of which are women and 2 are children.

The PTA pointed out the current challenges they are faced with, they included;

• There is a need to extend the number of classrooms to core the governments directive to educate years 1-9
• There is no water supply to the school
• There is a long distance to travel for the pupils and families to buy school materials, books etc. They would like to establish a school shop.
• There are no homes for the teachers. The teachers have to travel quite a distance to get to the school each day.

AA asked them what their priority was and they gave different answers. They just didn't know what their priority was as I don't think they could see the wood through the trees. It seemed to me that they have so many issues that need addressing they could decide what should be the highest priority.

In this scenario the Ruyigi AA team gave them some direction and took their requests forward for consideration. It doesn't matter where we go, there is always an organisation, community or network of people that have valid requests but ActionAid cannot fix them all. It has a limited budget which can only stretch so far.

  

This has got Josias and thinking about the possibilities of introducing micro projects to a gift catalogue. This would mean sponsors could choose a micro project, perhaps in their child's area to make a gift contribution too and our water project in Butaganzwa will suit this nicely. ActionAid has got a long term approach to delivering aid to Burundi and the way this works when you see it in action out here is amazing. Action Aid also provide immediate support also like extending schools, adding classrooms etc. but there are so many needs in the country, ActionAid cannot deal with all of them both from a budget and resource point of view.

   

I think the sponsors in the UK would love to get involved with micro projects like this, do some fund raising towards them and even come out to visit the child they are sponsoring and take a look or even help out with the project itself. My trip out here has been unbelievable, any sponsor who comes out here will have their lives changed forever.

CAEAP Farmers Association Network visit

This farmers network was the same structure as the one we visited at Bweru, however these guys concentrated on potatoes as their main harvest. They have 13 associations as part of the network totalling 261 members.

The main impacts from the establishment of the network were; cheap seeds, food production has been greatly increased due to better quality seeds, the use of modern farming techniques and using manure from the cattle provided. This in turn raised income for the farmers.

This network was so successful that each member (261 of them) received 400kg of potatoes for that harvest. In all, 10 tonnes of potatoes were sold, 10 tonnes were given to the members and 10 tonnes were kept as seeds. A real success story.

Saturday June 15th

We only had one official visit today, the rest of it is some well-deserved larking about.

First thing this morning the guys took me from some 'Sport'. Sport is a walk / run up in the mountains and across the plains, through villages and plantations. We did about 3 hours up some pretty big hills which over look Ruyigi. The view was breath-taking, (as were the flipping hills).

Karama Village School
 When we got back we had a quick shower then headed out to Bweru again for a visit to Karama Village School. The school was built last year by the PTA set up and trained by ActionaAid. Action contributed to the build in the form of metal sheeting for the roof and building supplies that could not be sourced locally and get this...the PTA organised a kiln and fired 50,000 bricks itself! 

The headmaster at Karama School

Had the school not of been built the local children would have a 4 to 8km walk to school, but the route to that school crosses a river which is impassable during the rainy season, so they never used to go. 

Josias gathering information for Action Aid

ActionAid also put one of its Reflect Centre's in here to teach literacy and modern farming methods. The more I experience out here the more I am amazed by ActionAid and especially the Ruyigi team. It's hard to describe these guys, a lot of them are ActionAid veterans with 10+, 15+ and even 20+ years under their belt. Basically they've dedicated their life to it and they should be recognised for it. 

Ruvubu National Park
After are visit we were running a bit late but headed East to the Ruvubu National Park. The problem of our late arrival worsened when we couldn't find our guide but when that was all sorted out it was decided we couldn't go where the guide was initially going to take us because there were likely to be tigers about. A fair concern if you ask me.

We headed over to a forest and had walk through spotting a few gibbons but we had run out of light so decided to get up dead early to go and have a better look in the morning.