Just out … A Vimeo video highlighting the SCIL Summit in Rwanda. Watch it. Join us! We can’t do this alone … we will need many minds, a spirit of adventure and lots of entrepreneurial thinking.
http://vimeo.com/37137613
School visit, lunch, travel to Musanze and opening celebration.
The SCIL team will visit a school in Kigali on the day before the summit and you are welcome to join us for this. It will provide an interesting comparison to the rural schools we will visit in Musanze.
Bourbon Coffee is the best place for an espresso, latte or capuccino and we will be having lunch in Kigali before travelling to Musanze in the early afternoon.
On arrival in Musanze there will be time to check-in and perhaps a quick orientation walk of the city before the Summit opening dinner at Ishema Hotel. As part of the opening celebration we will enjoy a performance of a local dance group.
Stephen Harris, Director of SCIL, will welcome all guests and cast the vision for the next few days.
Schools, the lake and the conversations
We will start the day with a brief overview and background of the schools in regional areas.
There will be two schools on the program today - Maya 1 and Kagogo, a stark contrast to the city schools. The smiling faces of the children and dedication of the teachers will impress you. The school buildings and environments will challenge you.
After the school visits we will call by Lake Burera. The natural beauty of the Musanze region is breathtaking. While at Kagogo you will have caught a glimpse of Lake Burera. On the shore of the lake we will have our first conversation and share impressions of the school visits, before heading back for lunch.
In the afternoon we will commence the idea gathering process. The dialogue will have a facilitated session, capturing and sifting thoughts and impressions. We will stop for dinner, then keep talking as long as we need to.
Another school and the hard work begins.
The day will start with a school visit to help shape your thinking.
Now, with all this input and the conversations, we put our minds to strategy.
What are the simple yet effective strategies that will make a substantial difference to the educational and life outcomes of young people in rural areas of developing nations?
Over to you!
Through a process of facilitated discussion we will synthesise our initial ideas and impressions into a broad range of strategies - at this stage, every idea is a good idea.
Kinigi and more hard work
This time the day will start with a visit to the community of Kinigi. Many tourists come here to see the gorillas, as it is located near the start of the tourist centre, but few actually have the opportunity to meet the local people, and play football with the kids.
The SCIL team have visited this community several times and have been warmly welcomed. This will give an opportunity to absorb the reality of life in rural Rwanda, yet be inspired by young people who can dream of the life that a good education can afford them.
Now the hard work begins. Taking all those great ideas of the day before and develop a number of strategies where we can think about our next steps. We will stop for meal breaks, but will keep going until we have identified those key areas. Lots of coffee needed!
The summit will officially conclude on the Saturday.
The SCIL team will be in Musanze until Tuesday. Participants may choose to leave immediately at the conclusion, or join in some post-summit activities.There are a number of activities that you may like to do. A great way to contribute to the local economy.
Reconciliation Village: A post-genocide project that has resulted in a village built by perpetrators of the genocide, who have paid the price, for the families who were victims of the genocide.
Local Musanze activities: Church, Markets, Musanze Stadium
Lake Burera boat trip: There is an opportunity to take a ride on the lake. This is a business run by locals and you will appreciate the natural beauty of the region.
Extended Lunch together: There will be an opportunity to reflect over the last few days on Monday 28 May, before we all go our separate ways.
Gorillas and Volcanoes National Park: Your booking is required at least 2 months in advance. The exhilarating climb to the gorilla’s natural habitat of shady bamboo forest offers fantastic views in all directions, before the trackers are immersed in the mysterious intimacy of the rainforest, alive with the calls of colourful birds and the chattering of rare golden monkey. Nothing can prepare one for the impact of encountering a fully-grown silverback gorilla, up to three times the size of an average man, yet remarkably peaceable and tolerant of human visitors. Costs for gorilla permits: USD $500 per person for non-nationals
Akagera Safari Park: Akagera is, above all, big game country! Herds of elephant and buffalo emerge from the woodland to drink at the lakes, while lucky visitors might stumble across a spotted hyena or even a stray lion. The park costs $30 for entry and the transport for the day trip is approximately $50.
The Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning is facilitating a ‘collision of minds’ – an Open Summit that aims to create strategic directions for enabling 21st Century learning opportunities for students in regional areas of developing nations. The Summit will be held in Musanze, Northern Rwanda, about 90 minutes north of the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
This is no small task. With entrepreneurial thinkers, action-oriented people and those with a commitment to serving this generation, we hope to create sustainable and economic options for improving infrastructure associated with school and schooling. The summit has the support of the Director-General for Education in Rwanda and the Kigali Institute of Education. It will also draw on the experience and wisdom of local principals and school leaders. More than 50 government school in the region are administered by the Anglican diocese of Shyira, under the leadership of Bishop Laurent Mbanda.
The Summit program has been organised to enable participants to enter into a brief journey to understand and appreciate the local context through visiting schools in the region. These experiences will enable participants to experience, first hand, the challenges facing schools and provide a springboard for conversation and strategic planning.
Rwanda faces a critical decade. By 2020 there will be a generation once-removed from the genocide. The young children who survived the genocide, and those born soon afterwards, are now in adolescence. They are the leaders of tomorrow’s Rwanda.
This open summit of minds is being located at Musanze, in the heart of a wider region of Rwanda, where within its rural reaches, life still revolves daily around subsistence farming and there is little income for anything other than short term survival. There are many schools in this region which have been steadily providing an education with little assistance. These schools create the ‘perfect storm’ of need, stoicism, readiness for assistance and aspiration. A summit in this location provides strategic templates for educational change anywhere in the world.
“We could and should have done more”
– KOFI ANNAN
Kofi Annan was the United Nations Secretary General in 1994. In 2004 Kofi Annan made a statement about the Rwandan genocide — highlighting his greatest regret: “We could and should have done more”.
The world let Rwanda down in 1994 with devastating consequence. We must not do that again. And now as Rwanda continues to rebuild, reorder and reset their society, they welcome ‘borrowed talent’ — People whose thinking can help them move forward.
This Summit is for anyone who can come with ideas, creativity and strategy that will help to bring solutions to improve educational and — ultimately — life outcomes for young people in regional areas of developing nations. When members of the broader SCIL educational community visited Rwanda, they were moved to action.
The summit is open to contributors, from any nation who are able to dialogue and bring solutions. There is no one plan or program that will solve the situation, but in true 21st century style, it will be the collision of minds that opens a way forward.
To appreciate the natural beauty of Rwanda and meet the warm and friendly people is a reason of itself. However, in addition, the opportunity to make a contribution to the lives of so many young people is an honour.
You will also participate in the facilitated Open Summit approach to developing solutions. Imagine combining a big problem, within the context of Africa, and matched with the breadth of experience each participant brings.
The Summit will be held in Musanze, in Northern Rwanda, about 90 minutes north of the capital, Kigali. The Anglican Diocese of Shyira administers more than 50 schools in the region. The Musanze Cathedral provides a space where the Summit can be held, and SCIL is grateful to Bishop Mbanda in allowing the event to convene there.
Stay in the loop for updates over the next few weeks. An initial program has been posted on the SCIL site (http://scil.com.au/rwanda) and registration will open shortly.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, email the SCIL team via learn@scil.com.au or follow @rwandasummit.
#Lisbox12 reflections
This interesting thought occurred during a conversation today. Are we living through a process whereby social media is finally breaking down some of the traditional divides that have kept education transformation suppressed? I suspect we are.
What is twitter managing to do?
· Break down the barriers that have made it difficult for teachers from different sectors to meet , collaborate and talk
· Spawn new grassroots movements such as Teach Meets where teachers from any background can freely share ideas
· Enable quick transfer of outstanding ideas and practice to anyone interested
· Gather a new educational tribe, one that has education and vision ahead of administration, policy or politics
· Challenge people to accelerate the change process at their respective institutions
· Enable easy access to educational visionaries from all over the globe
· Highlight where government policy is hopelessly inadequate across the world
· Bring together people who share a common passion for seeing students fully engaged in their learning
· Enable thought leaders to bounce their ideas with a speed and strength previously impossible
· Demonstrate that educational analysis can reflect current dialogue, not articles that surface a year after a conversation
I personally feel that the main blocker when it comes to changing practice is not the teacher, rather judgement and/or prejudice that has suggested that the education debate needs to be about public versus private, not passion and engagement. That debate has done enormous damage to the cause of education around the world. It has marginalized the passionate educators, thwarted productive conversation and allowed governments to be side-tracked into thinking that education is all about funding and budgets, rather than vision and opportunity.
I really hope that Twitter and other forms of social media will keep breaking down the walls of separation – and usher in a new educational era and tribe united around vision and hope.
Join the tribe. Be the change!
Co-Founder & Chief Learning Officer
Learnlife, Barcelona and Worldwide
Founder & Director
Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (SCIL)
Principal
Northern Beaches Christian School
