Final week
The final week at Ntenyo Primary School was characterised by busy schedules and a lot of hard work for all involved.
On the building site the local contractors continued to move things along with the construction of the classrooms and the restoration of the memorial. Some of the primary tasks included the preparations of the roof construction as well as finishing touches of the brick work on the inside and outside of the building. Volunteers also kept busy on site with the completions of some volunteer initiatives including a dream wall, creating signs to be posted around the school area and a photo board.
The dream wall, an initiative suggested by one of the volunteers, Sarah C, was developed to provide the school with a monument that could help encourage the 
students to dream about their future and think about how such dreams may become reality. The work with the dream wall was planned to be completed with the students of P6 as well as with the teachers of the school with volunteers spending time in the classrooms talking with the students and helping them write out their dreams.
However, it soon turned into much more than that. While first the local builders paused their work at the strange sight of painted bright blue and green hands going up on the yellow wall, it did not take long before they joined the activities. With such participation the wall ended up not only representing future dreams it also became a very unique and symbolic piece of work capturing the many wonderful hands involved in transforming the dream of the Ntenyo Primary School project into reality.
Another volunteer initiated idea was brought to life by the group’s two male volunteers, Sam and Mårten, who spent several hours of the week at a local wood shop. Here the boys developed more than 15 signs to be located at different areas of the school as learning tools to help the school’s community to increase their English vocabulary.
Thursday was for the volunteers the last ‘normal’ day at the site. This made it a special day as the group wanted to demonstrate a special thanks to the local contractors and the teachers for all the hard work, good relations and for the fun times that all involved have shared. This among other things included a special lunch on site where the volunteers used the opportunity to teach the contractors the English alphabet song which they were very happy to learn after having watched the students sing it everyday at morning assembly.
Thursday evening the group hosted a dinner for all the teachers and the school’s principal at the guesthouse. This time was spent sharing the experiences of the many past weeks of collaboration and was very emotional for both teachers and volunteers. The night concluded with the shedding of happy tears – demonstrating how the bonds that had been created were very unique and how all involved had benefited mutually from each others company.
A stone has been laid…
It was an early start Saturday morning as the day was organized to begin with an Umuganda (Rwanda’s monthly community service) at the school’s construction site before the big festivities were to take place, marking the accomplishments of the past six weeks. Several parents of students from the school and local community joined in helping with some of the final tasks at the site, which included clearing the work site of stones and bricks as well as hoeing the area of unwanted bushes and weed.
After a few hours of work the celebrations were ready to begin! Many guests arrived to see the results and to join the celebrations, which were set to begin with a ribbon cutting session performed by the Bishop of the district, the Rutabagisha family (school founder), the project coordinators, Sarah and Laura and the Sanejo board. After this the guests joined to see the restoration of the memorial site, which is well on its way to completion.
The guests were then presented to the dream wall where several of the children read out their dreams. Following the walk through of the physical accomplishments the 
festivities moved on to a more formal celebration where the school had organised several activities including speeches from the Bishop of the Shyogwe Diocese which houses the community school, the school’s principal and several others who expressed their perceptions and gratitude towards first of all the completed work but even more so about the future aspects of the great collaboration between the school, the local community, Sanejo and YGAP.
In true Rwandan style the event also included many great entertaining inputs from the students who sang and danced and made sure that the volunteers got up to join in. Following these events the day at the school was ended with a final reception at the church building of the school where much gratitude was shared.
It was here that “gusabana” – a Rwandan cultural practice of interacting and sharing food to celebrate – took place.So as the volunteer van pulled away from the school for the last time, the students followed it to the road with their many wonderful smiling faces making the goodbye very special but also sad as many new friends will be missed.
YGAP and the amazing work of our volunteers is made possible by YOU, so please give generously to show your support.
