Meet Jeanne d’Arc Mukanadahiro
In 2016 Ms. Mukandahiro was teaching 9th-grade English at GS Gitabage, a remote school high in the hills of the Rulindo district. She had completed 12th grade and had government clearance to teach, but no post-secondary education. At Gitabage she earned $55/month, shared a rented room near the campus because it was too far to commute home every day, and visited her young family only on weekends. But she longed to complete a formal teacher education program, and in 2018 was awarded REE’s first “professional development” grant. That initial grant was followed by REE funding for three years, as she persevered through covid lockdowns, glitchy online classes, and having to switch colleges when her first one went out of business. In the fall of 2021 she triumphantly earned a B.A. from Kibogora Polytechnic, and by March 2022 had a new job teaching high school French and English in Kigali for $160/month— enough to put her own son into a much better school and start a new life for her family. .
Others dream of teaching degrees too…
Another young educator working in Rulindo is JeanPaul. For the past year REE has been funding his position at GS Rukingu, a large inclusive school which includes a boarding school for intellectually and physically handicapped students. Paul teaches PE classes, traditional dance and choir, sitball, drumming, and yoga to students of all ages. He also coaches high school basketball, soccer, and volleyball teams, and helps the school’s discipline monitor. REE has now granted him the funds to enroll in a bachelor’s degree program, which he began attending during the summer and school holiday breaks in 2024. Thus he can keep teaching while he earns his B.A., and when he finishes will be qualified as a full-fledged primary/secondary language arts teacher. In the video below Paul (now teaching himself guitar) accompanies some of his traditional dancers at GS Rukingu.
Other talented young Rwandans dream of these kinds of educational/employment opportunities too, and REE provides assistance whenever we can.