L to R: Paul Johnson, Vanathy Ravindran, K. R. “Ravi” Ravindran, Florianne Nibakure and Elizabeth Johnson.

Grace Rwanda has long been supported by the selfless volunteer work and the generous donations from local B.C. Rotary Clubs including the Rotary Club of Langley Sunrise and District 5050.

That’s why we were thrilled to meet with Rotary International leadership in March at an event in Rwanda.

Elizabeth and Paul met Rotary International President K. R. “Ravi” Ravindran and his wife Vanathy during one of their visits to the African nation. The couple were joined by representatives from the 10 central African countries of District 9150.

The Johnsons also met with the president of the Minneapolis University Rotary Club, Florianne Nibakure. She is also working in Rwanda, as the founder and executive director of the Nibakure Children’s Village in Rwanda.

Rwanda’s First Lady, Jeanette Kagame as well as Rwanda’s Minister of Education and Minister of Health also attended the celebration.

It was a very special moment and we were able to express our thanks for all the assistance that Rotarians have provided us over the years.

As part of the visit, the president toured a library funded by Rotary five years ago. It is the last one they have built on their own.

Grace Rwanda is proud to be taking up the cause in building our own youth centre libraries, with the next one in Kimisagara set to open this spring. Our libraries were made possible in part through the thousands of dollars donations and thousands of dictionaries supplied by our own dedicated Rotary partners in B.C. We extend you a heartfelt thank you.

We are happy to be joining so many other Rotarians in bringing literacy to Rwanda. Stay tuned for more updates on our work.

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

Grace Rwanda’s co-founder Elizabeth Johnson is en route to Kigali, Rwanda, this week to participate in national events held in honour of UNESCO’s International Literacy Day on Sept. 8th.

Grace Rwanda was specifically invited by the Rwandan Ministry of Education to participate in their Rwanda Reads Assembly on Sept. 10th. While on the ground, we will join in on a week’s worth of national literacy initiatives, reading promotion programs, and networking with literacy organizations all working to promote a culture of reading in Rwanda.

We were honoured to be invited and hope our participation raises our profile in the country and helps us connect with partners who can further our cause. While there, Elizabeth will also attend events hosted at our Grace Rwanda-funded Muhanga and Kayonza YEGO Youth Centre Libraries. Stay tuned for pictures from the field!

Speaking of the Muhanga library, the YEGO youth library we created there just celebrated its first year of operation! We are proud to share that according to the annual report sent to us from library coordinator Josephine Umuhoza, our library served more than 1,209 youth in its first year.

The facility is now hoping to renew its subscriptions of magazines, newspapers and periodicals, which expire shortly, to continue to offer great reading material to local youth. To do so will require another $1,200 in funding. If you would like to see these valuable resources continued you can help us provide them by visiting our donate page.

Donors like you are the reason the spark of reading is catching fire in Rwanda! Thank you for all your support!

Grace Rwanda co-founder Elizabeth Johnson is on her way back from Rwanda and she reports that the team made great strides. Not only did they set up our second library and distribute school books, but the team also took steps to create a network of literacy partners to build an even stronger foundation for the future.

On March 20th Grace Rwanda partnered with Rwanda Library Services to hold a workshop educating a dozen local NGOs and government departments about literacy promotion and library outreach strategies that could be used to improve youth reading skills, especially in rural areas. Grace Rwanda was happy to be involved in facilitating this collaboration. We’re working together to create a national literacy movement!

Elizabeth also reports that the March 15th opening of the Kayonza YEGO youth centre community library drew incredible support from the community, and earned the attention of local dignitaries who are getting behind our cause.

More than 500 people attended, including two members or parliament, the mayor of Kayonza, the director of Rwanda’s Library Service and delegates from two government ministries, in addition to district officials, business executives and leaders from local churches and schools.

To mark the occasion, two local soccer teams played a demonstration match wearing jerseys donated to Grace Rwanda by the Canadian national women’s soccer league. We shipped 45 boxes of jerseys in all: we’ll donate two team sets to every youth centre library we open in future. Everyone was thrilled with the library, which was stocked with 2,000 books, Rotary-donated dictionaries, 10 e-readers and four laptops.

We’re building incredible support in Rwanda for Grace Rwanda’s vision of creating a new generation of readers. Thanks so much for being part of making our dream a reality.

You can get regular updates by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

The Grace Rwanda team is on the ground in Rwanda! We’re gearing up for the opening of the new Kayonza district youth centre library.

Elizabeth Johnson and our Canadian volunteers have been busy networking, by attending a Kigali Rotary event, and preparing for the opening of the new library on March 14 by selecting and purchasing books. Many thanks go to B.C. teacher Karen Saenger for her help and curriculum guidance in selecting new books for the library.

The team also checked in on the Muhanga district youth centre library that we opened last year. It was amazing to see the library shelves now completely filled with books, and to see the stacks of well-read magazines available to the area youth. The shelves have been finished as well and the centre looks fantastic and is being well used.

The group also stopped in to visit Rwinkwavu school, which Grace Rwanda has assisted so much in the past. The students, as always, were delighted to see Elizabeth, as this photo clearly shows!

Stay tuned for more news from Rwanda as we celebrate our second community library grand opening! As always, we couldn’t do any of this work without you. The youth of Rwanda thank you.

You can get regular updates by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.