Measuring our growing students

Student nurse Charlotte and John Paul combined forces to weigh and measure all 702 of our students for a growth chart to follow each year.
We hope to keep a record that we can share with the parents as we watch their children grow on a yearly basis.

The preschool was first on the schedule.

Stepping on a scale and then backing up to the wall is not hard unless you are 3 years old and getting instructions from a woman who speaks only English. John Paul was a godsend and such a help by speaking both English and Kinyarwanda.
Project moved on to the Primary School.

Birthdays!

Our university students came home in July to celebrate the birthdays of their sister Anitha, also a university student, and all of the children with birthdays in the previous three months and the next three months. Hey, that is how you do birthdays when you have 52 kids.
From left, Lilliane, Divine and Esperance.
Visitors Naomi Brooks from Melbourne, Australia, and Charlotte Earl from England joined staff member Olive and university students Divine and Esperance in a balloon fest. So delightful!

Worship at Urukundo

We are welcoming a new children’s choir at worship. This group is part of the over 60 children who come to worship with us each Sunday morning from the community. After worship, all children are invited to have lunch with the Urukundo kids and staff. Each Sunday, we add seats and benches as God blesses our service. We welcome the children with pleasure and thanksgiving.

Pastor Yves and Lilliane introduce visitors and visiting pastor and family to the congregation.

Sharing a blessing

Gifts from churches in America are shared by the Urukundo Worship Center with children in our community.
The gift bags are full of much needed supplies. They were made as a Christmas project for Urukundo and the surrounding community by the children and parents of St. Paul's United Methodist Church and Wesley Foundation in State College, Pennsylvania, USA.
The bags first were distributed at Christmas when over 500 children came to celebrate the birth of Christ with us. Throughout the year, the gift bags are used to give gifts to newborn babies from the Mama and Baby House and for needy children during the entire year. Each bag has a special message of love written by the giver.

Thank you, children and parents. What a wonderful project!

Hope Made Real board members visit

In the middle of the month, more volunteers arrived.
Carol Falke and Marilyn Ely are time-honored visitors to Urukundo. Marilyn first came when we were in Kibirige. Carol first came in 2011, and this was her eighth time to spend with us.

Carol is president and Marilyn is treasurer of Hope Made Real, which is our nonprofit 501(c)(3) in the USA.

Marilyn, left, and Carol loved their time with the children.

Marilyn learned new rules to an old game.
Carol and company made books using stickers to decorate the books.
Not only were Carol and Marilyn at Urukundo, but so was Margie Krogh, secretary of Hope Made Real and from Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, USA. She’s at left in the first row of the photo.
Imagine three Hope Made Real board members at Urukundo at one time!

We are honored by their presence.

The other two guests in the photo are Latha Bhagavatula, wife of the new director for Carnegie Mellon University-Africa in Kigali and at right in the photo,  and Cheryl Mutabazi, back from Australia, and in the center of the back row.

A special visitor for Carol

This young man from Kigali, Rwanda, is a student at Penn State University, located in Carol’s hometown. He has been kind enough to bring a gift from Carol to Rwanda.

He honored Carol by visiting her at Urukundo Village.

Thank you, Emmy Muhoza.

Rwanda-Buffalo connection

Aimable Twagilimana, a Rwandan living in Buffalo, New York, USA, and a professor at Buffalo State College, paid us a visit. It was another very short visit, but he toured our campus and met the teachers and students here. Thank you, Drew, for suggesting he visit us while he was home visiting his family.

Beautiful hands

We are hand in hand. Sharing the love.
Peter Zittel took this picture.

Think on this exceptional photo, please.

June 2018 Newsletter

What an exciting month!

The Primary 6 students are our first graduating class from Urukundo Learning Center. The students, teachers and Urukundo managers had the very first field trip ever. But not the last. The field trip will be a yearly event.
Large busloads traveled to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

The group visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre and paid respect and honor to those lost in the genocide.

After the visit to the Genocide Memorial, the children visited the Parliament building, which is the seat of governing body in Rwanda.
This was such an important day for Urukundo Primary 6 kids, teachers and managers. The students will graduate in November.

Goodbye to Special Friends

On June 4, Bob and Amy Dove returned to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, after seven months of living and working with us at Urukundo Learning Center.
Before leaving, a new outfit “made in Muhanga” at the Urukundo Sewing Center needed to be modeled. We like.
The day before they left, Amy read the Scriptures at worship, and Bob gave the sermon. Olive translated.

Sorry to see them go.

Event worth much ado

We were so honored to host the Anne Frank Project out of SUNY Buffalo State in New York, USA. The city of Buffalo is sister city to the city of Muhanga in Rwanda. The project uses drama to help children learn.
This lovely painting was presented to the Urukundo Foundation as a special gift from the group.

The work the visitors did is so interesting and productive and so appreciated. The Anne Frank Project conducted two full days of teacher training in drama-based education at Urukundo Village. About 30 teachers from the Urukundo Learning Center as well as more than 50 teachers from various schools in Muhanga received professional development on how to use storytelling in their classrooms. On a third day, the teachers used it in their own classrooms. The results were outstanding! Plans are underway to define the partnership among the District of Muhunga, Urukundo Village and the SUNY Buffalo State’s Anne Frank Project to make Urukundo a center for innovative teaching and learning.

Here are some pictures from the training for the adults:

The next photo is special for John Latone, Claude's best friend. Claude and John met when the group was here about three years ago.

The kids had fun with the visitors.
Dinner with the kids
Blowing bubbles and relaxing in the front yard at Mama’s house
Claudine and the bubble wand
Always foote ball(soccer)
The Anne Frank Project group presented “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

The storyteller wore the orange-dotted shirt. All did a great job.
The tale includes the chicken who laid the golden egg.
And don’t forget the monster giant.

The children participated in the presentation. All had a wonderful time.
Now there is a new stone on the path. It shows where the heart is.

Visitors

Lauren Wright from South Carolina, USA, first came to Urukundo when she was with the Peace Corps and returned after finishing a degree in nutrition to visit her friends, the village and Urukundo. Love having her.
Lauren and her best friend Benita
Peter Zittel and his mom, Kim Zittel, came the middle of June. Mom stayed for a short time; Peter stayed longer as a volunteer helping out at the preschool. They are from Buffalo, New York, USA. Peter starts university in the fall.
Didn’t get mom’s photo. Sorry, Kim.
Big kids challenge Peter in foote ball (soccer) match.

Come back soon, Lauren, Peter and Kim.