Africa Transformation Network — Africa Transformation Network

Growing XMM Community

Charles Kabeza — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:37:04 +0000

Xtra Mile Ministries Community has now grown to 30+ people. The community which began last year meets weekly on Saturday afternoon to study the Bible, share struggles, and develop leaders.

The community hosted elections this past month to elect local leaders as well as a benevolence comission to help counsel, advise, pray, and provide for those in the community with need.

Although the primary participants in the community are involved in the Education program, just less then half come from the local community or Xtra Mile Ministries Board. Xtra Miles Education Program currently has 22 students attending University this year.

3 New Ladies Begin Sewing Project

Nancy Shewmaker — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:40:55 +0000

During February, the women’s quilting class continued with renewed enthusiasm, as three new women were accepted into the program. After just 2 weeks with the new ladies, it was observed that they are determined, resourceful and dedicated to the task of improving their sewing skills. As with the Intermediate class, it is a constant exercise of training in precision measuring, cutting and sewing, since the outcome of their efforts should be considered something quite attractive and well-done, the ultimate goal being to produce articles which would be of higher value to future customers.

The new women are determined to be able to provide for their children. Antoinette is the mother of twins who are six months old. Both Donatilla and Severina are caring for their own children as well as additional orphans.

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Prenatal Care

Brian Robinson — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:41:31 +0000

During the Months of January and February our team has formed a relationship with the community health center at Ruhuha in the Eastern Province district of Bugasera. With the expertice of our ultrasonographer Lori Kimbrow we have been able to provide prenatal care to women of this sector.

During our preparations for this visit we were delighted to discover that the network, BBC, out of London was interested in filming Lori and her patients during our February visit. The BBC has began planning a series called “Human” which is expected to go on the air in late 2010 or early 2011.

We are blessed that others are interested in our work in Rwanda and we hope through our partnering with the BBC we can increase interest in Rwanda and find ways to partner with other organizations and Rwandan nationals to advance our care beyond one single sector.

We hope in the future this program, along with the teaching programs at KHI will be able to advance to the point where we have Rwandan students and newly educated Rwandan Ultrasonographers going out into the sectors with this great technology.

Taekwondo Club Trainings

Marty Koonce — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:59:16 +0000

We continued with our development of a national Taekwondo team and a Taekwondo federation for Rwanda this month. We were able to host four practices at the Belgian School and trained the clubs from Kigali as well as Butare. They continue to work on their registrations with the Ministry of Sports and after the completion of this will be able to apply to the Olympic Committee of Rwanda for federation status. This will link them to the World Taekwondo Federation and allow them to compete internationally on behalf of Rwanda.

Pictured is Marty with Lee Yong, the Ugandan Taekwondo Federation National Coach.

Sports League Preparations

Chris Shelby — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:48:53 +0000

ATN began preparations for the upcoming youth football tournament. We met with school officials, coaches, and others to prepare for a kids football tournament which will launch in May. The tournament will be called the ATN Peace Cup and will help promote peace and unity among the people of Rwanda.

In addition, ATN coordinated a sports equipment drive in America to help us launch our sports program here at ATN. We are partnering with two schools in Texas to raise equipment, uniforms, and shoes for our sports league.

Taekwondo Trainings

Marty Koonce — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:31:10 +0000

The work of ATN with the Rwandan Taekwondo Athletes continued in the month of January with three training sessions held at Ecole Belge with an average of ten athletes attending each session. Martin Koonce was able to implement the training techniques used by the Ugandan Taekwondo Federation in beginning the preparation for the athletes for the East African Taekwondo Championships in March. The top athletes are beginning to show great unity as a group and are advancing in both skills and theory. They have nearly completed the process with the Ministry of Sports in registering the three main clubs. After this they will pursue Federation status with the Olympic Committee of Rwanda.

Intermediate Quilting Course

Nancy Shewmaker — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:53:22 +0000

The Intermediate Level Quilting Course has now opened, with the same women who successfully completed the 2009 Beginning Quilting Course. This time, the women are busy making placemats and table runners so they can show their skills and produce an attractive marketable product. This takes time, and with a program that only runs 2 hours a day, most of the women who have sewing machines at home are taking their work home with them and continuing to work. They are determined to produce something unique for Rwanda.

This time they are using donated fabric, which someone in California sent to them. It is small samples of upholstery and decorating fabrics, so they are trying hard to come up with ideas of small items to construct with these beautiful fabrics. We will also use African fabrics, as we believe there is a market for these as well.

African Bagel Company

Marty Koonce — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:06:25 +0000

ATN began a commercial application of the rocket stove development program with the African Bagel Company. Martin Koonce with the help of Robin Smith, developer of the African Bagel Company, built a brick rocket stove for them to use in the cooking process. This allowed them to boil more bagels (a type of bread) more quickly and reduced their fuel usage as well as cooking time from nine hours down to just six.

Sport’s Camps in Kicukiro

Chris Shelby — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:38:40 +0000

This month ATN hosted two free sports camps for the youth in Kicukiro District. We conducted a week off football training for 4 hours a day and conducted a week of basketball training for 2 hours a day. Our program served approximately 150 student athletes, boys and girls, in our district, from the ages of 10-18
years.

We also hired two Rwandan coaches to assist with running our camps. Partnering with two local schools, St, Joseph Primary School and St. Patrick Secondary School, we were able to offer the youth in our district a quality camp experience.

Our basketball camp ended up merging with a camp being run by the Rwanda Basketball Federation at St. Patrick due to limited court space. When our two camps merged, we worked with over 70 basketball players. At the end of our camps, we hosted a reception for the participants at our facilities at ATN. We invited them and their families to joun us as we introduced
ourselves at ATN and asked for their input on how we can best serve the youth in our community. We had over 150 people attend our reception.

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Ugandan Coaches Train Rwandans

Marty Koonce — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:27:42 +0000

December was an exciting month for Taekwondo in Rwanda as two master coaches and the women’s national champion arrived for a weekend of training at Ecole Belge for the top Taekwondo athletes of Rwanda. The athletes trained for a total of eight hours from Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. Training, technical movements, and preparation for Olympic style competitions were covered extensively. Twenty one athletes attended including Rwanda’s first woman Taekwondo practitioner. There was good media coverage from Radio Rwanda, Igihe, and Izuba. It was a good way to start the preparation for competition.