October 2015

First honey harvest : production is still limited, but the enthusiasm of the 24 members of the IKIMA cooperative rises.

Hopefully we can build the "Honey House" shortly ... We are waiting for the funds.

Scholarships : the Foundation that finances most of the scholarships has come to visit Nyamyumba and to meet the supported children. They visited all the facilities in the village and showed a lot of interest.

Today we are giving priority to secondary school scholarships. In fact, many poor families cannot allow their children to reach maturity and we take care of them. Thanks to the RC foundation!

House of the meeting : it ended and was inaugurated with a meeting of the whole community of the 4 hills which saw a turnout of about 300 people.

A very strong emotion for us who dreamed of this moment from the beginning: the three ethnic groups gathered and fraternally embraced.

Epilepsy Project : Angela Casadei is working on a new project for the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. We await the OK from the Ministry of Health to decide whether it will be done in our dispensary independently or under the dependence of the Circolo di Munini Hospital.

The need for autonomy of our dispensary emerged during Angela's stay: she began the training for the diagnosis of Jean Paul, a local nurse (there are 100 people with epileptic problems who are being treated in Nyamyumba!). Many of them are so poor that they do not have the money to pay for the trip to the Munini hospital, for now the only one to have the necessary permits for treatment.

Summer 2015

One Laptop per child ( http://one.laptop.org/map/rwanda ):

110 computers have been delivered to Nyamyumba Primary School and this will mean a big change in the study!

Many activities:

- Ilaria Marchesini spent a week with various construction and design activities.

- Lisa Bosia, Katrine Keller, Jean de Dieu Bahahira and Jean Bosco coordinated the training of 21 people from Nyamyumba, women, men and boys, who received training in a short time. They have now installed modern hives by relocating their swarms from traditional hives.

- The construction project of the houses of the Batwa-Pygmies is now completed.
The 16 houses are home to over 90 people from the community.

- A house was built in Nyakanyinya for Emertha and her 3 children: HIV positive and widow, she asked for help during one of the last community meetings.

- Construction work on Anathalie Kayitayire's new home has begun in Nyamyumba.

- Construction work has begun on the multipurpose room which will serve as a meeting place for the 4 communities: the work is carried out in Umuganda (unpaid community work) by the community itself with the contribution of Mabawa for the roof, windows and concrete.

- New scholarships were distributed, particularly in secondary school, to very poor children who had had to interrupt their studies due to lack of funds. We are now at 39 support grants for professional, secondary and university students. The scholarships are almost entirely supported by a Foundation through Mabawa Italia.