Pupils and staff help young people in Rwanda

Staff and pupils have been collecting donations for projects in Rwanda. Pic: Fife Photo Agency.

Suzie Mahr, who teaches religious and moral education (RME) at the school, is heading out to Rwanda this month for a week to work on various initiatives including a joint project on Gender Equality with the Groupe Scolaire Bumbogo school in Rwanda.

She will also be helping the charity Comfort International (formerly Comfort Rwanda & Congo) by taking donations of: thin clothes, baby clothes, toothbrushes and toothpastes as well as a cash collection of £336.32 which will be used to buy jotters for school-age youngsters in the country.

Suzie, who has made four trips to Rwanda since 2008, is travelling out on February 10 along with fellow RME teacher Barry Mitchell.

She said: “We are going across to work on a Gender Equality project with the Groupe Scolaire Bumbogo school. The headteacher at that school, Jean de dieux Kwizera, is very interested in doing something on the treatment of young girls with unplanned pregnancies and we might look at the treatment between the genders in a more global context, but we won’t know exactly what the project will involve until we get over there.

“I held assemblies over a week with young people from S1 to S6 to explain about the trip and what we were looking for in terms of donations and they have been amazing. We have collected 60 kilos worth of clothes and money to buy jotters for youngsters in the Batsinda street kids project.”

She continued: “School tuition is free for them but they don’t have materials to take to school so we are buying the jotters and biro pens. I was hoping to collect enough money for a year’s worth of jotters but the pupils have been so incredibly generous that we now have three years’ worth.”

Suzie will also be taking across letters the pupils have penned to the Rwandan children along with a Scotland flag signed by pupils. She added it is also hoped to take KHS pupils on future trips.

Barry added: “I am looking forward to seeing how the education system works – it is great to have that link with the school in Rwanda.”