Newton February 2021

As many of you know, due to the work of the National Commission for Children, we only have thirty-four students living here at the Village. During the seven-month COVID break in 2020, the Rwandan government changed its school year to begin in July and end in May. So Rafiki Rwanda adjusted its school year dates to end in June. It all has to do with university entry dates.

So according to this schedule, our last group of residents will leave us in May of 2025. This means as of June 2025, we will no longer have boarding students living at the Rafiki Village. I have known for two years that the Rafiki mothers would be losing their jobs, so I set a goal to work with them and get them trained for a new one!

I think they would make good teachers, so I talked to them about the Rafiki Institute of Classical Education (RICE), the teacher training program. They were interested, and after letting them think and talk amongst themselves for a while, they said they wanted to try it. I asked one mother what level she would be interested in teaching, whether preschool, lower primary, or upper primary, because that determines length of time a student is in the program. She said she wanted to go as far in the program as time allows.

We got approval from the Home Office for me to lead the Rafiki moms only through the RICE Program. Of course, some others heard about it and asked if they could participate also. Right now we do not have the space to accommodate others, and the mothers are only able to do the coursework in the afternoons because they have other responsibilities in the mornings.

The ladies are engaged in the lessons. They had fun with the English language video lessons, probably because they speak English fairly well. Although, one said she didn’t realize “hi” and “hello” mean the same thing.

They plowed right through the first four math assignments, all scoring well.

Pray for their perseverance and patience as they learn new terminology and concepts through the various topics of study.

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