The Learning Centre
The Learning Centre is an initiative of Solace Ministries and Network for Africa and is supported by INSPIRE!africa. It is located in Kigali, Rwanda within the facilities of Solace Ministries. The Learning Centre offers classes, free of charge, in English and computers to young, poor and vulnerable teens and adults.
Many of the students are orphans of the Rwanda genocide and are also heads of households. Approximately 40 students come each day to classes at the Learning Centre, many walking 2-3 hours each way to benefit from this free education.
Many young people have not been able to complete secondary school as they can not afford the fees and uniforms and they are busy caring for younger siblings or orphans. Soon the Centre will be able to accommodate more students as an expansion to the building is underway.
The Learning Centre has one full time teacher, Moses Kiyendeye, who lost his father in the genocide. Moses is also studying management and finance at the University of Kigali. Moses does a wonderful job in operating the Centre in a professional manner, teaching and motivating the students and providing emotional support to the students when necessary with his caring nature and big smile.
The Learning Centre welcomes visitors to volunteer their time and skills throughout the year. INSPIRE!africa volunteers taught at the Learning Centre for 2 weeks during July, 2008.
During our visit, we asked the students at the Learning Centre to prepare a written response to the following two questions:
- Why is learning English important to me?
- How has the Learning Centre helped me?
Following are some of their responses.
Diane - 28 years
“I learn English for a lot of reasons: I’ll get more knowledge from different books through the English skills that I got because a lot of books are written in it. The Learning Centre helped me to explain myself…I feel very competent to speak English…Learning Centre give me different friends…it helped me to study English for free, to improve my English.”
Jeanne – 40 years
“Our teacher Moses helps us in all things we want to know….Now I can understand what is saying on the radio (BBC). Also, the Learning Centre brings us visitors who are very kind to us. When we speak with them we learn new words and we develop our pronunciation. I think that the Learning Centre is a good way to achieve our development in speaking, pronouncing and to communicate without a doubt.”
Xavier – 40 years
“English will change my future and life will be good. This moment I enjoy very well because I can read the Bible… the Learning Centre had opportunity for me to study computer. Thank you very much.”
Fanny – 20 years
“I think learning English is very important to me because it prepared for my future, it will facilitate to study at university, it will facilitate to get a job, it will facilitate my business activities.”
Joseph – 28 years
“The Learning Centre helped me to get out of boredom…The Learning Centre helped me to know how to utilize skills gained for better tomorrow in the development of my country.”
Evelyne – 13 years
“How has the Learning Centre helped me? I can learn English and meet new friends and laugh and feel happy.”
Adephense – 22 years
“English is very important to us because everywhere you go they use it.”
Vincent – 27 years
“I think learning English is very very necessary because of to make friends, to communicate each other. You have probability to travel around the world because of English.”
Eric – 24 years
“Learning English is very important to me because first, English is spoken by many people, everywhere they use English. Second, to learn it is to develop your intelligence because you know a lot of things from abroad, with English you get different friends, you know what is going on all over the world using radio, reading newspapers and watching TV.“
Joseph – 32 years
“We have some computers with internet access in our Learning Centre which is very important to me.”
