In my last post, I wrote about education in Rwanda and how it works. Today I will try to explain how The Children’s Academy, and then Amizero, came about (the above picture is a view of the campus from the driveway of the Cana Center). I admit I may not have all of the details exactly right, but the gist will be accurate.
The story begins with Fr. Leszek Czelusniak, MIC. He is a Polish priest from the congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception (MIC), which originated in Poland in 1670. Their apostolic work in general is to promote devotion to Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception and Divine Mercy, encourage religious education and operate schools. Popular Marianist fathers in the US include Fr. Alar, Fr. Gaitley and Fr. Calloway.
When Fr. Leszek (LESH sheck) first dreamed of building an academy, it was to give local primary students an opportunity to explore beauty, grow in understanding of the faith, and develop their creative side. At the time, students were only attending primary school half days, so the Academy began as a sort of “after school enrichment” program. In partnership with The Abana Foundation (formerly known as All Day Fore Africa), Fr. Leszek added focused classrooms as money allowed.
This picture taken from the observatory shows the general layout of the Academy. Each building is a generally a single classroom; originally each room was devoted to a particular activity, such as art, music, a chapel, learning English, etc. Because music and traditional dance is such an important part of the Rwandan culture, he built the bandshell (at the bottom of the above picture) where students have space to learn traditional dance.
The picture above shows the bandshell from the courtyard. On this particular day we happen to be playing pickleball (kind of), but you can also see the observatory behind the bandshell. Fr. Leszek wanted the kids to be able to see the stars and the beauty of God’s creation; at the top of the tower is a very impressive telescope!
In December 2019, the Rwandan government abruptly announced that all instruction shall be provided in English, beginning in January 2020. The president believed that in order to be a player on the international stage, the country needed to speak English. This sudden shift in national policy placed a greater need on students learning English, so the Academy provided an important avenue to supplement the instruction students were receiving in the local public school.
In November 2022, the Rwandan government made another major policy shift without much warning. Effective January 2023 (two months later!) the national school day was to last from 8:30 am to 5 pm. Suddenly the children who had been able to come to the Academy for half days were no longer able to come on weekdays. So, the Academy pivoted again!
Fr. Leszek established the Amizero pre-school (amizero means “hope”) to provide a Catholic early-education opportunity for nursery students as a way to give them a head start on primary school. Also, the local primary school did not have enough space to house all of the students for a full day, so currently only the P2 students (2nd graders) go to school half days. I am not sure how they get around the national mandate. At the Academy, 18 P2 students will attend in the morning every day, and another 18 will attend in the afternoon to supplement their English studies. The local primary school has class sizes of nearly 50 kids; these 36 will get much more direct and individualized instruction at the Academy. By the way, this is the group I will be working with. Finally, on Saturday mornings, older primary students will come to the Academy for a mixture of dance, play and English instruction.
The future of the Academy is uncertain. If the local public school (Nyarushishi) starts holding P2 classes all day, we lose the daily access to our students. On the other hand, we are extending the Amizero pre-school to a second year this year. Maybe we can slowly start to build our own school, adding a level each year until we have a school that takes students from nursery through P6. This will of course require money up front to add classrooms, but more importantly there will be a need for sustainable funding so the community can count on enough funds for school supplies, uniforms, teacher salaries, etc. It is a poor community; the lion’s share of revenue will need to come from sources outside of Kibeho and likely outside of Rwanda.
The director of the local public school chooses which P2 students come to the Academy. Since tomorrow is the first day of school in Rwanda, he will either inform the students tomorrow or the next day that they are to come to the Academy. This means that we will start teaching on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. This allows me one more day of work on Satan’s doors!
I am anxious to get started! I will finally be joining my fellow educators from back home, who have already been teaching for several weeks. May God bless teachers everywhere with His wisdom, love, patience and strength. The call to be a teacher is a beautiful and challenging one!
May God bless us all.