Move Up Global and Ireme Education for Social Impact Visit to Nyabirehe Primary School Village

April 2nd, 2020

NYABIREHE Primary School is located in RUNGU Cell, GATARAGA Sector, and MUSANZE District, Northern Province of the Republic of RWANDA. It is a public school.

In February 2020, Move Up Global founder, Dr. Anatole Manzi and Board Member Leslie Belay visited the Nyabirehe Primary School and met with members of Ireme Education for Social Impact (IESI) as well as the school director, teachers and students. IREME is a key partner of Move Up Global in Rwanda.

IESI is also a Non-Government Organization established by volunteers from different region of the country. They work in different fields including education, health and environment sustainability. IESI strives to improve education quality. It motivates learners to studying and working hard by giving them some schools equipment or material as motivation tools. In health and welfare issues; IREME provides information campaigns in areas such as nutrition, hygiene and sanitation.

Among the issues and priorities at the Nyabirehe Primary School discussed during the visit were:

• English proficiency: teachers have a big challenge of English communication language level: they need Training in English language skills

• Electricity: the school is not connected on Electricity network or portal and this constitute a principal challenge

• No fence for the school night an daily security (the school neighboring to the Volcanoes national Park need to secure their environment for the animals incursion has to put in place the fence)

• No computer lab for Information Communication Technology courses and Internet connection, the learners needs to prepare a national exam in Information Technology or Computer Sciences

• No library ( very few teachers textbooks, no text books for learners and comfortable place for reading and documentation

• The health and welfare main challenges faced by NYABIREHE Primary School are presented as follows:

  • Lack of drinking fresh water and equipment for storing this water;

  • No room for girls ( the learners /girls) studying in P5 and P6 have a big problem related with the comfortable rooms for changing their pads during monthly period menstruation);

  • Lack of sport equipment: School needs playground for different games/sports

  • Lack of hygiene and sanitation situation: Some of them haven’t school uniform, no health facilities, and some of them present a malnutrition appearance.

After visiting NYABIREHE PRIMARY SCHOOL the delegation has visited GROUPE SCOLAIRE RWINZOVU located also in GATARAGA Sector, MUSANZE District, nearest Volcanoes National Park.  The visits helped to align Move Up Global, IREME and the School staff on key immediate priorities such as bringing electricity to the school as well as enhance everyone’s shared understanding of the many issues which are of concern and we hope to address in the future.

By Audace Gerard Niyigena, IESI