Savannah- Economic Challenges

A famous social activist once said, “Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.” That quote has had great meaning to me during the past month. The work of IEE went largely unaffected by the financial crisis for sometime. One week in November, however, a number of our loyal donors called in to say they were simply unable to make their monthly contributions. It is certainly understandable why these people felt this way, but for IEE this was serious news.

The whole IEE team had to come together and decide how to respond to this challenge. I am pleased to say that discouragement did not overcome us. While funds may be lacking at the moment, support is not. We still feel as confident as ever that the programs we have developed in conjunction with the students and teachers at Kagugu as well as the Government of Rwanda are going to make significant, long-term improvements in the education system in Rwanda.

The question has been, how are we going to continue to accomplish our ambitious and exciting goals with significantly less funding. The answer is, by sharpening our programs and making certain that each piece of each program is deeply impactful. What is most needed by students in Rwanda, and how can we maximize our resources to make significant strides in this area?

Teacher training has been the consistent request of teachers and the Government alike, so IEE feels its efforts in 2009 should be focused on establishing and improving the Teacher Training Program. We see the slowdown as an excellent opportunity to put our focused effort on creating the best teacher training at Kagugu so that we will be ready to expand it to all of our partner schools in 2010.

This does not mean that we are forgetting about the other three initiatives that make up our four-part program ( Teacher Training, Education Through Athletics, Classroom Connect, & Infrastructure Improvements). Throughout 2009, we will continue to work diligently on developing these programs alongside the Government, teachers, and in association with partners in the U.S.

In short, this current economic challenge has far from paralyzed IEE. Instead, it has helped us to discover more about who we are. We have looked seriously at our priorities and realized that our goals are still attainable and worth our effort. We are energized to launch our programs this year, and we’re looking forward to the successes and challenges that are sure to come.