The Permit and a good Hall in Rubirizi! At the (new) beginning... PART 5

On Friday April 19 we went to see the development in Rubirizi. We are building a multipurpose Hall thanks to donations and we are opening the Hall for a preschool during the weeks. The builder, Mr Joseph has done a good job and we could see that this will be a building for as it is said "many purposes". You can see the building from far away, even from the main road you see it on the little hill between two larger hills.
 
The building is now almost finished, some decoration work and finishing work is to be done.
The workers are still doing some work, so the school will have to stay on in the other rented room and in the Penticostal church until we can have a Grand Opening with dedication to the Lord.
When that is done, the children will be welcomed to their new preschool building.
 
 
The air vent at the entrance is now being "mudded" and then they will bring out the holes from the tiles
so we will have a nice air vent in the shape of a cross.
 
When entering,  you can see a nice big room, the floor is made of concrete which is good, we did not
want the dirt flooring. In the tin roof, we have asked for "see through sheets" in six places, three places
on each side. For the moment only two are in place, but you can see what a difference that light makes-
it will be a beautiful light in the preschool/church when the work is completed.

We were met by salvationists and contractor, builders and village people. The Village Leader, the man in the orange/black shirt asked if the community can sometimes gather to village meetings in the hall.
Our reply was that everything is possible, we just have to write clear and good contracts/Memorandum of understanding, so conflicts in the future will be avoided. They also asked if it is possible to receive more than 80 children, would it be possible to build aonther small building with two classrooms? There are about 110 children in the village...
In the "wash project" that AUE is sponsoring, there is a water harvesting tank prepared to be given to the community, and because the Salvation Army Hall is the only big building and there is not a Community Hall in the village, it is needed to document how, when and why... the tank is placed at our Hall. This will help avoid conflicts in the future, we do want peace and happy times together, so we will prepare for this in a good way together with the village, cell and sector officials.
 
We had set up a meeting with the Executive officer and Education Officer at the Sector Office. We have
been waiting for a permit from Sector (for a looong time) for opening and running a preschool in Rubirizi.
We have said that we cannot open until we have that document in our hand, so finally we got it! Hallelujah! 
 
The preschool has been reported in the local government´s Performance Contract with the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, as one of three example preschools already, but now it will be official. It will
involve more inspections and visits from local government to support and check up on the work the
teachers do, it will involve some training for the teachers and the school administrators in the community. This is a good thing.
The Salvation Army is a church, with a clear Mission Statement (see Mission Statement in the blog articles) and running this preschool is the part of helping a suffering world. 
 
In the hall, there are two windows on each side. The contractor was to put in windows and informed us
that he would put in wodden windows- like small doors, that you open up to let the sun shine in.
We were not really satisfied with that and asked him to look at the budget again if possible.
 
    
 
The Section Officer, Captain Obed had a talk with the man again and after some discussions about the
budget it was decided to change and buy real steel windows (without the glass) instead.
We are happy for that! The windows are important,both for air conditioning and for light, I think :)
Just take a look at the next photo...

                                                                                                                                                                 
Can you see the light?
And that is from one small see through sheet. It will be so beautiful when we get the crest up on the wall... This day the sun was not even shining from blue sky, it is the rain season and this was a typical cloudy rain season day...
 
There is a small platform, the concrete has only just been put in place and it is looking GOOD!
 
Can you see how nice the wall is- I think the crest will be very nice on the wall. I have started painting
a crest, it takes time, but hopefully I will finish it in three weeks, tops,  and before the Dedication of the
Hall. I also have an idea of a painting with Jesus and the children and the crosses in the background with the Bible verse Joh 3:16 as inspiration... We´ll see if the salvationists would like to have it in the hall.
In an improvised Village meeting we informed about the building pricess, showed the permit for running a Salavtion Army preschool in the village and present certificates of training for the two teachers. (I will write a blog entry about the training we had in the beginnng of the month.) There was time for questions and we talked with the villagers about the progress and process...
 
We also took some time to sit down with the teachers to review the term 1 finances, to encourage them
to learn how to work with income and expenses sheets, so they can understand the link between the two... Money is a tricky thing, handling money is an even more tricky thing. We concentrate some training days at CHQ for this during this year, for school administrators and some other invited staff, we want to empower our people!
 
 
Please continue to visit the blog and pray for The Salvation Army work in Rwanda and Burundi. All we do is to serve our Lord Jesus Christ in the best way we can - together as ONE in the mission of love with the message of grace.

Until next blog entry; Göd bless and keep in touch!
/ Major Anna-Maria, Sponsorship Secretary, Rwanda and Burundi Command
 
Photos and copyright: Anna-Maria Tuftstrom
Photos can be used free within the Salvation Army.
To get originals for printing and media, write a message and we will assist you.
 

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