Consultation Paper 9- Official response from the Local Church

The Minister (Pastor) of the church concerned and the school parents' committee have met and decided the project needs re-planning for the following reasons:

First, the meeting identified that the number of kids to be helped (12) is too small thence predicted there would be serious problems with selection.

In the context of post-genocide time, we fully agree with them and had anticipated this part as a potential setback a few months ago.

Second, they thought it would be better to invest such limited funds into collective projects, such as building toilets, repairing or building new classrooms etc...; and this is consistent with the informal feedback gathered by a volunteer in July 2006.

Here we felt these alternatives were chosen simply because they overcome the risks of ethnic polarization. Otherwise, it is clear the feeding program would be welcomed if more funds (thus more kids) were available and that there was a variety of other projects involving large groups of children (idea of selection done away with completely); and this is indeed the case.

SO WHAT?

Since one of the donors is willing to take up a personal bank loan allowing the Village Project to avail an upfront sum of as much as £5,000, it is believed the foresaid concerns of the Minister and School Parents' committee will be addressed.

Moreover, the Village Project organizers are also willing to comply with the project management cycle advisory notes (first and second) kindly provided by an expert in the field: implementing some of the suggestions given by the Minister and School Parents' Committee particularly building toilets for the school.

So, the next few weeks will be used to:

1. Make enquiries about the school toilets:

- How many are available and functional now;
- How many are recommended (accepted number of pupil/toilet ratio);
- How to get at least 2 independent quotations for building materials (cement, etc...) ;and
- How much contribution will the Church and parents put in (volunteers for labour- builders, brick makers etc...);

2. Gather answers to the questions raised in Consultation Paper 8 from at least 2 independent sources;

3. Continue to explore the feasibility of the school meal:

- How to pick one class (both ethnies represented randomly) among many to start with;
- Assess whether the funds available would feed this class Monday to Friday each term until the end of primary education (6 years);
- Continue to lobby for more Church, School and Parents' help i.e. vegetable garden, rice field, rota for cooking the meal and washing up afterwards (or any other cheaper alternatives such as hiring a caterer-Church members and parents being a priority); etc...

4. Register the Village Project account currently on Denise Hart's name- now has more than £650- as a club/society account;

5. Recruit a British, White and Christian person (wonder why? please click here) who, once all the formalities are sorted out, will go to launch the project in Bugarama/Cyangugu/Rwanda.

The Village Project will offer half of the air fare and arrange the accommodation in one of the missionary stations for this volunteer, who will then sacrifice his/her time and money to:

- Run a pilot school meal study (length and number of kids to be determined later);
- Fit the results into the data obtained from similar schemes previously run by the World Food Program in certain areas;

- Execute pre-agreed plans regarding the purchase and storage of food as well cooking and serving of meals;
- Execute plans regarding competent and reliable channels of communication and control;
- Execute plans regarding a fair, robust and efficient complaint procedure;

- Take audiovisual images as the project goes on;
- Explore other ways the project can benefit the community, kids not enrolled into the feeding program; parents, Church;
- Explore the requirements prior to extending the feeding program to other classes (funds permitting).

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