by Gilbert Mwijuke
The Red Rocks Cultural Center in Nyakinama village, Musanze
district, this year started English classes for rural women belonging to
different cooperatives to enable them to easily communicate with foreign
tourists.
Home to the Volcanoes National Park, which is famous for its
mountain gorillas, Musanze district is the heart of tourism in Rwanda.
The cooperative women make utilitarian products such as pots
and baskets and aesthetic handcrafts like jewelry and beads, which some of the
tourists buy after gorilla-trekking.
Marie Nyirabigirama, a 33-year-old mother of 3 and resident
of Susa village, is a member of the local Amaboko yi Imigisha Cooperative. She
says the literacy classes they attend in the evenings have immensely improved
her English language skills, and now she can competently speak to tourists who
come to buy her handcraft products.
“Before I joined the classes, I found it difficult haggling
with tourists who came to our cooperative, and sometimes I would lose the
opportunity to sell anything just because of [the] language barrier. But now,
any time I meet tourists, I’m able to talk freely and transact business with them,”
she says with enthusiasm.
Polline Muhawenimana, 36, is a mother of 4 who demonstrates
to tourists how to make the local banana beer, known in Rwanda as Urwagwa. She
says that initially she had to rely on a translator whenever she was
demonstrating to the visitors how to make the beer, but now “things have
changed since I enrolled for the classes. Now I can speak directly to them,”
she says.
Belta Ntawangkaje, 40, says she and her colleagues have
learned more than English here. These classes, she says, are tailored to teach
them how to create and implement their own business plans and to take care of
their health and family health through proper washing of hands, sanitation, and
hygiene.
Furthermore, “During these literacy classes, I’m able to
learn many things and make informed decisions for my family. All my children
are in school, and I hope to continue supporting them to have a bright future,”
she says.
Ntawangkaje adds that even though she went back to class
just to learn English so that she could ably communicate with tourists, she has
come to realize that education is “more than just learning one subject, for
I’ve learned more to do with my rights as a woman, the value of educating my
children, and how I can handle money matters to save for the future.”
Their current class teacher, Sumaya Beekun from the University
of Nevada who is doing her internship here, says the women have shown
remarkable thirst and passion to learn the language, and they can now easily
converse with tourists.
“The initial challenge was that when we started, some of
these women didn’t even know any of the 26 letters of the English alphabet. But
it’s amazing that within these few months they’re now able to speak to
tourists, which shows the level of their personal commitment to learn,” says
Beekun.
For more information, go to www.amahoro-tours.com
No comments:
Post a Comment