Dear Supporters, 

It’s a pleasure, on behalf of the APIE team, to welcome you to our Summer newsletter and to share with you some updates on the past few months, which have been packed with exciting activities!

Thanks to all of our partners and supporters in Rwanda, the UK and beyond we have been able to continue to work alongside Umubano Academy to support school improvements, the Continuous Professional Development weekly training programme and to ensure that the academic year was brought to a close successfully.

The APIE team has been very busy setting up the ‘Ready to Learn’ project which will soon be launched in refugee camps across Rwanda. Some of the project activities have included creating the project implementation plan, designing curriculum content, putting together the Monitoring and Evaluation tools and planning a Training of Trainers workshop, with our development partner organisation World Vision Rwanda. We are now excitedly looking forward to visiting Kiziba Camp in September 2023 to meet the camp education team, leaders and other development partner organisations.

Our pilot projects have continued at Umubano Academy and schools in the Bugesera District, with some very positive feedback coming from the school leaders, teachers and students. Firstly, the Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons have been well-received, with the teachers of P6 and S1 reporting that the lesson plans are very useful and packed with excellent guidance, activities and suggested resources. They have been particularly positive about the gender-responsive cross-cutting theme that runs through all of the lessons. Other teachers in the pilot schools have also shown interest in the PSHE content, and we are hopeful that, should we secure the much-needed funding, we will be able to take the intervention to many more schools and Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) in future.

The second innovative intervention that the APIE team has continued to introduce as a pilot at Umubano Academy, in partnership with the school leaders and teachers, is the formative assessment initiative ‘Personalised Target Setting and Progress Tracking’. The examination classes have particularly benefited from having motivational, individualised targets for all of their subjects and this has enabled both the teachers and students to work together to track progress and carry out learning interventions frequently. The students have told us that having personalised targets, which they have been able to work towards with their teachers, has motivated them to own their own learning and to work hard and aim high!

In June, we went into the field to visit two of the sixteen Teacher Training Colleges (TTC) and one cluster of schools in the Rwamagana District, to introduce the Year 1 trainee teachers and the newly recruited teachers and TTC tutors to Education for Positive Peace. We will resume the field visits in the coming academic year to ensure that we reach all of the TTCs and the clusters of schools throughout the country with this very impactful course to continue to support as many educators as possible to strengthen their teaching practice in the areas of positive behaviour management, Social and Emotional Learning and Inclusion.

We really hope you enjoy our Summer Newsletter; we are very much looking forward to sharing more updates before the end of the year - please follow us on our social media channels for more news as it happens!

Best wishes,

Irene
APIE CEO

Umubano Academy

In May 2023, the school was able to put the funds to excellent use to make improvements to the basketball and volleyball courts. These are now being very well-used by the Umubano Academy students and staff! APIE is now looking for funding to further develop the playgrounds to include more play equipment for all phases across the school.

Our Projects 

Ready to Learn

The APIE team has been busy setting up the new ‘Ready to Learn’ Teacher Professional Development project, funded by the British and Foreign School Society (BFSS), which will take place in refugee camps across Rwanda. The project will run from May 2023 to April 2025 and APIE will initially focus intensively on one refugee camp in the Karongi District, Western Province, before the course is then rolled out in the remaining four camps, in partnership with World Vision Rwanda (WVR). The APIE team has designed a Training of Trainers workshop for the WVR education field team and we are excited to be carrying this out before the new academic year begins in September 2023.
 

The current phase of the project has involved a lot of design and compliance activities; creating the course content, setting up the Monitoring and Evaluation tools and processes, liaising with government representatives and development partners and creating the project implementation plan. The project has started well and the APIE team is very much looking forward to the introduction to the refugee camp in Term 1 of the new 2023-2024 academic year!

The Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) Pilot

Two full syllabuses for the PSHE pilot project, including 30 detailed lesson plans, have been created, with the focus of this pilot being on Primary 6 and Secondary 1 classes. APIE decided to start with these two classes as this is the transition point between primary and secondary education and a time when girls are most likely to drop out of school. By providing support to all students to develop their Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills, with a particular focus on gender-responsiveness and the barriers that girls face in their education, we aim to empower teachers and students to be capable, confident and armed with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will make them successful learners and citizens.
 

The pilot has been made possible with funding from the Nelson Family Foundation and The Merriman Charitable Trust. A number of training sessions and workshops have taken place in two districts of Rwanda; Kicukiro and Bugesera. The three schools that are piloting PSHE include Umubano Academy, APIE’s partner school and centre of excellence where we always test our initiatives and innovations before taking them to a wider group of beneficiaries. We have gathered baseline data, lessons have been taught and the feedback so far has been positive across the board, with one Head Teacher telling us that the impacts of PSHE are being felt not only in the target classes but throughout the school!

The next steps will include further lesson delivery in Term 1 of the new academic year, in September and October 2023 followed by Monitoring and Evaluation activities, case studies and a report for the Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB). We will then be pursuing as many channels as possible to secure the funding that will enable us to create syllabuses for all classes from Primary 1 to Secondary 3 and to make the course available to teachers throughout Rwanda!

Fundraising News

Our fantastic International School Ambassador, Elena Seungeun Lee has been working hard with the rest of the team at We Learn to Share to fundraise for scholarship places at Umubano Academy.

At Cheongshim International Academy, We Learn to Share sold snacks and held a bracelet-making tutorial using a video created by APIE, a Rwandan artist and the Umubano Academy team. They raised an amazing $400!

Support like this is vital to our work in providing more children across Rwanda with a quality education. Are you part of a local community group or school that would like to fundraise for APIE? We’d love to hear from you!

Girls Circle Mentorship and Scholarship Programme

The US Friends of APIE continue to support students at Umubano Academy through their GIRL (Girls Inspired by Real Leaders) Circle scholarship programme. This programme contributes to breaking the cycles of poverty in Rwanda by providing scholarships and mentorship to girls and their families.
 

Thanks to their kindness and generosity, scholarship students like Claire, can receive the support, resources and equipment they need to access quality education and achieve their goals.

Funding the Teachers of the APIE family

A huge thank you to the Victoria League and the Robert Wainwright Fund who have generously funded three Umubano Academy teacher's salaries. Umubano Academy teachers are an instrumental part of the APIE family. They have undergone rigorous training and are experts in learner-centred education, learning through play, critical thinking, education for peace, inclusion, ICT, cooperative and independent learning, problem-solving and much more. These teachers are not only committed to the children in their classes but to sharing their knowledge and experience with teachers across Rwanda.

Together, we can transform education 🎓🌍

As always, we love to get feedback and hear ideas. If there is anything you want to let us know then please get in touch.