Rusty Ott
Education 6
Western Province
Nyamasheke District
During the August school break--the two weeks separating the second and third terms of the Rwandan school year--I volunteered to assist a camp called TechKobwa. This is a technology camp for female secondary students in Rwanda--Kobwa is derived from the local language's word for "girl." The camp has been put on for the last few years in a partnership between Peace Corps, IBM, Michigan State University, KOIKA (the South Korean version of Peace Corps), and various Rwandan NGO's. It was held at a vocational college in Kibuye (also called Bwishyura and Karongi), the capital of Western Province, on Lake Kivu. Much leadership was provided by the Camp Director, Peace Corps Volunteer Elisabeth Turner, who has been working with the camp since its inception.
Sixty teenage girls from ten schools across Rwanda, along with their schools' teachers of ICT (information and computer technology--a required course in Rwandan secondary schools, even when they lack computer labs) came to Kibuye to spend a week learning about computer technology. My role was to be in charge of games and recreational activities in the evenings. That was a good role for me, because while I enjoy playing games, I know very little about computers.
However, there was much more to this camp than simply learning about computers. As I see it, this camp was mostly about female empowerment. For one thing, purely technical classes were complimented with life skills lessons on topics such as public speaking, self-confidence, and finding your voice. For another thing, technology skills are an incredibly empowering thing for a young woman in Rwanda--they lead to jobs, but also give them access to communication and information; they make their world bigger. Lastly, I cannot overestimate the positive impact of an all-female learning environment, plus being surrounded by so many strong female role models--some from America, some from South Korea, and some from Rwanda.
There were girls, who, during the camp, sent their very first email in their lives. There were others who learned to type for the first time. Others had a great deal of fun playing with cameras, taking their first pictures*. One evening we did a group Skype call to the classroom of an ex-Rwanda PCV who is now teaching a summer program in Baltimore. It was a bit chaotic, but one of the highlights of the camp. Part of that was seeing American students, sharing cultures and entertaining each other (the Baltimorians performed The Whip and the Nae Nae for us, and our girls did a traditional Rwandan dance for them). But a large part of it was experiencing Skype. We could have taught a class about Skype and explained everything there is to know about it, and yet it might have remained a fairy tale to them, something rich people in America use. Instead they used Skype. I also told them it was free. And so, as soon as the Skype call was finished, the girls were asking how they can download Skype, if they can use it to talk to people in Rwanda, and various other questions implying that they plan on using it.
As to the power of an all-female learning environment, a little background on Rwandan culture may help explain this. In Rwanda, girls are conditioned--sometimes subtly and unintentionally, and sometimes overtly--to believe that boys are stronger and smarter and it is their job to be outgoing and speak out in class, while the girls should be reserved and quiet. In my English classes I will sit down next to or across from a female student and ask her a question. If I do this with one of the brighter and more confident girls, she will reply a correct answer in a voice so quiet I can barely hear her, and when I ask her to repeat more loudly fall silent. If I do this with one of the more shy girls, her response is to chew on her pen and look away. Meanwhile, the boys will shout out what they think the girl should say at the top of their lungs. At TechKobwa, this did not happen. At first, the girls were very quiet and self-conscious, but by week's end there was a noticeable difference. For once, Rwandan teenage girls were being loud, enthusiastic, exuberant. Six girls from my school attended the camp, and in our short time back, I have noticed a difference in them. In my classes, they seem more confident, more forthcoming with answers, and happier, almost as if they are enjoying my classes for a change.
Furthermore, they had so many positive examples of strong women. One afternoon, there was a career panel of Rwandan women who spent a few hours telling their stories and answering the students' questions. One of them had been born in America to a Rwandan immigrant family and chose to come to Rwanda to work. Later, we were visited by two students of Akilah Institue for Women, an all-female university in Kigali preparing young women for careers in business and hospitality management. When I pulled up the university's webpage on my laptop, several girls crowded around, looking at pictures and asking about the application process. Many of the girls at TechKobwa come from schools where almost all of the teachers are men, and from communities where most of the leadership positions are held by men, so spending a week surrounded by so many strong and successful women was a change for them.
Speaking of men, there were several besides me who worked very hard to make this camp a success. Several were Rwandan ICT teachers who came with their students, others were with KOIKA or Peace Corps, and others were with Rwandan NGO's such as Creation Hill and Keppler. Not to mention we had much assistance from the staff of the school that hosted the camp. Some of these men had less-than-progressive attitudes towards women. The day the girls all arrived I went to the bus station with two Rwandan men and one Rwandan woman to meet them. As we started, I asked "Are we all here?" The men answered yes, but I noticed the woman was hurrying to catch up, a ways behind us. When I said, "Wait, Mary isn't here yet," they replied "Ah! It is just a woman. She is weak." While some of my acquaintances home in rural Iowa might say something like that as an ill-advised joke, these guys were completely serious and surprised when I had a problem with that statement. Other times, when I tried to tell people how in classes I have taught across the world the smartest students have often been female, their response was, "But in Rwanda, it is different." While these attitudes are less than enlightened, to put it mildly, these same men worked their tails off to make the camp successful. Getting the girls from the bus station to the school turned out to be very challenging, and I could not have done it without the help of the same men who said "Ah! She is a woman. She is weak." Those same men put their hearts and souls into the camp. Obviously, I hope that the sexist attitudes many men hold--in Rwanda and everywhere else in the world--change for the better. But it would be a mistake to wait for those attitudes to become perfect before including men in gender empowerment work. Including them will both serve to change their own attitudes, and will increase the potential of projects such as TechKobwa.
*An almost excessive amount of fun--whenever we gave them cameras with which to practice photography, they went crazy taking pictures of each other modeling their best poses and finding opportunities to get pictures with the Americans. Each camera session led to them being at least 15 minutes late for their next scheduled activity, and ended with me prying the cameras from their hands and physically pushing them towards the classrooms
