Help us finish our school building in Rwanda

It all started with a box of Crayola crayons and a 4am phone call from Rwanda to the USA. Ten years later, 317 children are benefiting from an education they could never have dreamed of had that phone call not been made.

Bright School was founded by a Rwandan teacher who wanted a high-quality, playful, inclusive education for her country’s youngest children. She had a dream of starting a nursery school, but she needed help. When she phoned Jan, an American friend and early childhood education specialist, in the middle of the night, neither of them could have imagined how one small nursery class could become a thriving preschool and primary school with truly pioneering teachers, advocating every day for a child’s right to an engaging, joyful education. Jan and her husband Bill didn’t mean to start an NGO, but they found themselves falling in love with Rwanda and TEACh Rwanda was born. The rest, as they say, is history.

Bright School provides bright futures for some of Rwanda’s most vulnerable students. Unlike many schools here in Rwanda, our school offers access to story books and locally made toys and resources and encourages creativity and real-life discovery through engaging visits to the local honey shop, a building site, or the school kitchen. Despite coming from impoverished backgrounds, children are genuinely excited to go to school every day and excel with the support of their caring teachers. We don’t want Bright School to be exclusive, so TEACH Rwanda supports a quarter of Bright School children through their 'Fund a Future' scholarship programme. 'Fund a Future' pays for school fees, provides daily porridge for all learners so they don’t go hungry, and even helps with school uniforms and shoes.

But now TEACH Rwanda needs your help. We embarked upon a massive construction project this year so that more children can access this special school, and we have already raised a whopping $40,000 for our new two-story building. However, we are a small NGO and funds are still desperately needed to complete it, allowing us to accommodate the growing requests for places in a playful learning environment that truly respects children.

With 8 new classrooms, we can move out of rented rooms allowing us to start building a truly sustainable school. We envisage an ICT room and a music room to nurture children’s creativity, and our new classrooms will be large enough for children to move around freely, innovate, construct, play, experiment and collaborate in groups. Most schools in Rwanda have large classes of up to 70 children; students sit in rows at desks and learn by rote. At Bright School, we empower our teachers to nurture qualities such as entrepreneurship, self-esteem, leadership, collaboration, analytical thinking, curiosity and empathy. Although we have a highly vulnerable population at our school, we know that Bright School students are Rwanda’s future leaders and should be given every opportunity to thrive and flourish whatever their background. And with your help, they can. We'd love to raise the funds to finish our eight new classrooms and brighten the futures of Rwanda's youngest generation. If you could meet our children, you'd know that your donation could support a child to become Rwanda’s next president – we truly believe this!