Once we put our efforts together we can achieve so much. We have lost a lot by not working together.

—Adelphine Uwasu, Deputy Director, Rwandan District of Gasabo

I recognized that a vibrant school involves the entire community working together.

—Sylvain Bikorimana, Wellspring Administrator

Helping Rwandan schools become vibrant places where children can truly succeed requires involvementfrom the entire community. This is why Wellspring recently invited Cormac Russell from the ABCD Institute and Brian Nugent from Nurture Development Africa to train our entire team as facilitators in Asset-Based Community Development.

As its essence ABCD is about helping communities use what they already have to secure what they truly need. It challenges leaders to transition from a needs-based approach to a strengths-based approach that truly sees the members of a community as citizens.

                                                                 

 
For the five days from August 6th to 10th, Wellspring and its key partners from other non-profits, churches, and government (75+ participants) became a learning community so we could learn how to integrate ABCD principles into our work in various communities. Our goal was to improve our own practice and learn how to help the schools where we work take greater ownership over their own improvement.

The training far exceeded our expectations. As we learned together we also built our own community and formed a foundation for future success, reflecting Cormac’s maxim that “You can’t think your way into ABCD. You can only act your way into ABCD.” We began to truly grasp the power of being citizens and wrestled with ways we had treated the Rwandans we worked alongside as clients.

We look forward to seeing the impact ABCD will have as we seek to help Rwandan schools become truly vibrant communities!

…than visit Kruger National Park."

Canadian businessman Brad Malchuk was exuberant as our van wound its way up a dusty dirt road to Gasabo Primary School.  The one hour trip to this hilltop school—one of forty schools currently partnering with The Wellspring Foundation—was full of scenic vistas and dynamic rural life.

Brad and his family—including wife Rene, daughters Rachel and Brittanny, and brother Terry—came to Rwanda as part of a unique Donor Insight trip for Canadian business people.  The trip was run in partnership with Opportunity International Canada (majority stakeholders in Rwanda’s leading microfinance institution) and on this particular day we were taking a busload of business people to see Wellspring’s work firsthand.

We entered the gates of Gasabo Primary and were greeted by hundreds of children singing and dancing.  I was as surprised as anyone.  We had not arranged this in advance.  Cultural barriers dissipated.  Our Canadian guests joined in and soaked in their unadulterated joy, the joy of children unaffected by their long walk to a small school dealing with seemingly overwhelming circumstance.

                                                                 

The tone for the day was set.  Teachers at Gasabo explained that their entire attitude towards teaching and success in the classroom had changed through working together with Wellspring.  This was only partly true.  It was equally true that the school leadership and staff had chosen to take ownership for their school community and the children entrusted to them.  Their clear success and improvement in a short time frame was their own.

The day was particularly sweet for Brad Malchuk because his company—Fastik Label and Supply—had invested thousands of dollars in partnership with Wellspring, to empower a new generation of Rwandan leaders.  He was witnessing the difference that investment was making for hundreds of children at school like Gasabo.  He was forming his own Rwandan story to take back to his family, friends, and employees—a story that was changing his life.  And he realized that even a day in the world’s best game park could not compare to that.