About Us
Together in Sport Rwanda (TiSR) Purpose and Aims
Together in Sport Rwanda aims to improve the quality of life to young people in Rwanda’s rural Bugesera district, in the village of Gako. We are passionate in using the power of sport as a tool to improve education, develop life skills and improve health, wellbeing and social cohesion.
Background
In 2009 Kari Spence, then aged 18, travelled to Rwanda for the first time with a group of 15 young people. This was a life-changing experience, where Kari was involved in creating an educational playground for a school situated in Kigali, Rwanda’s Capital City. Kari completely fell in love with the country and the Rwandan people, and she knew she wanted to return to Rwanda again.
This is where the story started…
Kari deferred her entry to study Physical Education Teaching at the University of Edinburgh for a year and decided to head back to Rwanda, to live in a rural village with a local Rwandan family. For three months during 2010 she lived the life of a local Rwandan, where water was limited, the house had no electricity and she ate traditional Rwandan foods. She volunteered at the local school, where she taught English and introduced different sports to the primary-aged pupils.
It was during this trip that Kari was taken to a small rural village, Gako, situated around an hour’s drive from the capital to visit Faith and Hope Primary School. Driving into Gako village, she witnessed many children sitting at the side of the road wearing rags and covered in mud. Children as young as three were walking miles with heavy containers of water. Kari could not believe the contrast between the Kigali city and the poor rural villages surrounding it. When she first arrived at Faith and Hope, she was shocked at how many pupils were squeezed into one class, how few school supplies they had and how dirty and malnourished the pupils were. She immediately knew this is where she could make a huge difference. Kari made two trips a year, working closely with the teachers, particularly developing their physical education, health and wellbeing programmes, using the knowledge she was gaining at university. To enable Kari to take resources and raise funds for the school, the Together Partnership (a Scottish Charity (SC040298)) initially supported her,
Six years on, Kari founded Together in Sport Rwanda along with five committed Trustees. The charity has set up a variety of different projects, helping to improve the lives of the 500 pupils at Faith and Hope Primary School, and consequently having a positive impact on the whole community of Gako.
What we have achieved so far without grant funding from 2014 – 2017
Projects Sports Field 2014:
Kari was made aware that the nearest sports facilities were over 5km away from the school, and therefore the pupils were not receiving any Physical Education. The only land that had any potential for the school to use to provide sport was put on the market for sale, and was likely to be used for housing. Kari put out an appeal to the sports industry in Scotland asking for help. This appeal raised £6500, which enabled the school to secure the land. This land now provides the school with a full-size football pitch, as well as a basketball and volleyball court. This is used daily by Faith and Hope pupils.
The head teacher has also set up a football team for the street children, as well as an adult team, made up of the fathers of the pupils which the charity helps. The entire community has access to these pitches.
Sponsor Programme 2014:
When Kari first visited Faith and Hope, she was overwhelmed at how many children still did not attend school. She therefore initially started a sponsor programme, where for £3 a month donors could send a child to school. This grew quite quickly, with friends and family keen to get involved with the programme. With class sizes increasing, Kari and her board of trustees decided that there had to be some changes to the current sponsor programme. In summer 2017, after discussions with the head teacher at Faith and Hope, it was decided that sponsorship of individual children was not the most efficient way to support the school as a whole. The charity therefore revised the initial sponsorship programme and launched ‘Friends of Faith and Hope’. We now have over 140 people in the UK supporting the school by a monthly donation. This helps with overall day-to-day running costs, enabling the school to purchase more textbooks and teaching materials, and helping with the local teachers’ wages. As part of this ‘Friends of Faith and Hope’ programme, we have a crisis fund, comprising emergency funds to help those families most in need. Consequently, NO child will ever be required to leave the school due to being unable able to afford their fees. To find out more about our ‘Friends of Faith and Hope’ programme click here
Food Programme:
In December 2015, we received a donation of £2500 from Removal Service Scotland (RSS), which enabled us to build a kitchen at the school. Through fundraising, and effective partnerships with local businesses, we are now feeding hot porridge to all 500 pupils two days each week. The charity already has enough sustainable income to support this until the end of 2018.
To feed a child for a month is £3. To find out more about our food programme click here.
Health Insurance:
From January 2017, through our own fundraising, we have arranged health insurance cover for every pupil, and all staff at Faith and Hope. This was recognised as a priority, after many children fell ill with malaria and the school experienced an increase in pupils with HIV. We are already committed to continuing to fund this until 2019, through allocating our restricted reserve on all fundraising achieved through our volunteering programmes. It costs £3 per year to insure a pupil.
Volunteer Trips:
In July 2017, we took our first team of UK primary and PE teachers out to Rwanda to volunteer at Faith and Hope Primary for two weeks. The teachers took part in an educational programme, where they worked with all age groups, from nursery to P6, delivering a variety of different lessons :- PE, English, Numeracy, Literacy, Art and Music. They worked closely with the local Rwandan teachers, delivering a teacher-training programme, where they introduced the local teachers to a variety of different teaching methodologies, and shared their expertise, to improve the overall education which is being delivered at the school. The charity aims to make this an annual trip, therefore providing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to the local teachers on an annual basis. Through this trip, the volunteers are asked to raise a minimum of £400, which goes directly to the charity’s projects. To find out more about volunteering click here
The charity is very passionate about providing opportunities for young people to experience a life changing opportunity, by visiting Rwanda on a educational volunteering trip. Kari has been involved with taking three groups of young people out to Rwanda so far. These young people visited Faith and Hope, working with the pupils and designing educational art work for the school classroom walls, to be used as teaching aids. Alongside the work at Faith and Hope, the young people visited the genocide memorial sites, learning about the history of the country, and were offered many opportunities to experience Rwandan culture. For more information around youth trips and school trip to Rwanda
Who We Are
Together in Sport Rwanda is managed by a small group of committed individuals in Edinburgh and East Lothian.
Kari Spence
Founder
She has visited the school many times since then, and Together in Sport Rwanda has become a huge part of her life. She is extremely passionate about the organisation achieving all of its goals and ambitions, and thanks everyone who has supported her so far in this adventure. Without you all, we would not be where we are today.
Sue Spence
Trustee
Penny Lochhead
Trustee
She brings skills in developing sports projects from the grass roots to reality, and through bringing the right people together to help a project thrive. Financial assistance is huge when working in a Country like Rwanda, but it is the people on the ground that can really make the difference by spending it wisely.
She looks forward over the next few years to using her skills and experience to contribute to changing lives in this small community through directly supporting change at Faith and Hope.
Chris Neill
Trustee
With a background in healthcare, she spent many years as a cardiothoracic perfusionist and physiotherapist within the NHS and the private sector, and now specialises in acupuncture and complementary therapy. Her time is split between developing her business and looking after the family and its many animals.