Dry season in Rwanda is an excellent time to make bricks. Brick making is a fairly large industry in this country, and the simplest and least expensive methods used do not require many supplies. The few important elements needed for a small scale production are dirt, straw, and a water source, a nearby river or lake fitting the bill just fine. When traveling through rural areas in Rwanda, one will often see areas where thousands of newly formed bricks have either been set out to dry in the sun or in preparation for the oven.

Those who make bricks need little formal education to operate a small cottage-industry business. Moreover, no training at all is necessary in order to be hired to transport these bricks from the water source to the sales venue. Recently, Wellspring’s Parenting trainers met with Parent Teacher Association (PTA) leaders in Ruhanga, one of our schools that is located in a rural village. Student attendance is an issue at the school, and a growing concern amongst the PTA leaders is that primary-aged students are being hired by brick makers to transport their bricks.

An African brick oven

While some of these students are hired during times when they are not expected to be in school, others are working during their regular school times. Their pay, though minuscule by western standards, supplements the meager family income. Because the children are contributing to the welfare of the entire household, parents may not enforce that their children regularly attend school. Also, in African tradition, children were supposed to assist their families.

Although this is most certainly an example of child labour, prohibited by Rwandan law which sets the minimum labour age at 16 years, parents are not the only adults in the community who choose to look the other way. Local leaders turn a blind eye to the practice of hiring young students during the school day because the businesses and those who operate them are an integral part of the area’s economy. Village politics also almost always plays a part.

Ruhanga’s PTA leaders were at a loss as to what they could do to get the children back into school. Jeanne Tuyisenge and Wellars Nkwaya, our Parenting trainers, were able to work with them to formulate a game plan for next steps. They encouraged the PTA leaders to meet with the local leaders to share their concerns. They stressed the importance of passing these concerns along to district leaders who hold greater authority.

While the Parenting trainers have completed the formal part of Wellspring’s program, they remain valuable advisors to those with whom they have already worked closely. As we move toward our next phase of program delivery, we pray that we will be able to continue to foster these relationships while also empowering the PTA leaders to confidently make these types of decisions independently.

While transporting bricks may be a temporary fix for a poverty stricken family, the metaphorical bricks being laid at the village school can impact for a lifetime.

Teaching is generally not regarded as an attractive career option in Rwanda. A young person will enter the teaching profession when most other options are no longer available. Many aspire to be doctors, lawyers, or entrepreneurs, but when they fail to do well enough in their secondary school leaving examinations, they choose education as a last resort.

Teachers at the lowest end of the pay scale receive a net monthly salary of 30,000 Rwandan francs (approximately $54 Canadian). This sum is nowhere close to a living wage. To make matters more difficult, districts are sometimes two to three months late in paying their teachers this meager amount.

While public education is "free" in Rwanda, there is always an expectation that parents will pay teacher incentives to the school each term. These incentives are used to supplement the teacher's salary. While these incentives are small and may not seem like a great deal of money, many parents either are unable to pay or chose not to pay for a variety of reasons. When parents do not pay these incentives, Head Teachers then use much of their valuable time tracking down the money. This produces many conflicts between administration and parents and sometimes trickles down to the classroom to create tension between teachers and students.

Seated on benches against the wall of the small room are ten well-dressed teachers, only three of whom look a day over twenty-two years old. On a somewhat cool day by Rwanda's standards, some even wear long-sleeved sweaters. The teachers have been summoned to a meeting, and there is an air of anticipation as they await what the afternoon will hold for them.

Justine, the Head Teacher of Ruhanga School, opens the meeting with a welcome and asks one of the more veteran teachers to give an introductory prayer. She also reminds the teachers about the focus of today's meeting.

When the agenda of the meeting is handed over to Wellspring, Teacher Trainer Ladislas reminds all of his keen listeners that today's topic is effective group work. Just two weeks ago, these teachers were at a two-day Wellspring workshop on the same topic. The purpose of today's meeting is to reinforce what was learned at the workshop.

Wellspring teacher trainer Theogene makes a point during a recent staff meeting at Ruhanga School

I once read a book entitled, "Death by Meeting" by Patrick Lencioni. In his modern fable, Lencioni outlines what he feels is one of the biggest problems of modern business: bad meetings. The story follows a young, dynamic CEO as he does his best to radically reform the culture of meetings within the organization he leads.

These staff meetings led by Wellspring bring life to our Whole School Development Program. Held at the school, they are very practical in nature, as the teachers know that they will immediately be implementing what they are learning. These meetings are the in-between step as the teachers transition from the workshop setting to the classroom setting. Within days of these meetings, Wellspring trainers enter the classrooms to observe and work with the teachers as they move from best theory to best practice. These school-based meetings and the follow-up classroom observations and conversations that come next set Wellspring apart from many organizations which do teacher training in Rwanda. Workshops alone can often be easily forgotten if new ideas are not implemented quickly.

Today, the Wellspring trainers are modeling what effective group work looks like. The teachers are quickly divided into three groups and asked to list the important concepts of effective group work. Their task is then to represent this in a poster with pictures on a large piece of chart paper. Trainers Mercy, Beatrice, Theogene, and Ladislas circulate amongst the groups to ensure they are on-task and working towards the stated purpose.

Before creating the poster, the teachers discuss how many students will be in each group, what the individual students will be doing, how they will keep the students engaged, and whether each group will have its own name. They remind each other that groups will often choose leaders, secretaries, reporters, and timekeepers. After the posters have been completed, each group designates a spokesperson to share the posters with the rest of the staff.

Ruhanga teacher Patrick explains his group’s poster to the rest of the staff

At the end of the presentations, Justine asks which of the teacher groups summarized the topic well and which of the groups worked most effectively. Immediately, the volume rises in the room as the teachers vociferously advocate for their own groups. It is a light-hearted debate as much laughter also fills the room. Like a good teacher would do in his own classroom, Ladislas allows for some discussion but then intervenes and praises all three groups, indicating that each of the groups' presentations complemented each other's.

This is a meeting, and indeed the teachers have no choice but to be here, but there is life in this room.

April is Rwanda’s month of national mourning and as the nation remembers its brokenness and pain through its theme of ‘Hope’, the importance of empowering Head Teachers, Deputies, Teachers and Parents seems even more significant. The future of a nation’s hope depends on what it is building in its schools and children today. Thus as we completed our final Whole School Development workshop there was sense of accomplishment that, in spite of challenges, we were rebuilding the present and future hope of a nation.

Having found the other members of their group during a workshop game, Teacher Trainer Ernest Ntamugabo
(far right) and teachers now discuss the shared characteristics that make them a group.

When faced with pending change, there are four general styles or types of people we come across in these situations. They are commonly known as Resistors, Followers, Early Adopters or Pioneers.

Théophile is the Head Teacher at Kabuga School, located approximately twenty minutes outside of Kigali. He definitely fell into the 'Resistor' category when Wellspring's Whole School Development Program started in his school two years ago.

Kabuga Head Teacher, Théophile, discusses an idea with Kabuga’s deputy at a recent Head Teachers’ Day at Wellspring

Not unlike some of his other administrative colleagues, Théophile was a very reluctant participant. By definition, individuals with a 'Resistor' personal change handling style are likely to be reluctant to accept change or like to be the very last to do so if possible. As such, resistors tend to have little or no interest in thinking about a change initiative unless it is likely to offer substantial benefits over and beyond the circumstances that they currently enjoy. When a 'Resistor' is also the leader of the school, changing the school culture is likely to be next to impossible.