Our New SCHOOL! That's what is New!!
An Inspiring Visit by an inspiring visitor.On Friday 16th August,we were honored to welcome Dylan Moens. Dylan is Belgian and he is deaf. he was visiting Rwanda along with his girlfriend Maite(she is not Deaf) whose mother is Rwandan. by visiting Rwanda Dylan was also curious about deaf education and what it is like to be deaf in Africa and Rwanda in particular. that is how he came across our website and arranged a visit to our school. one can ask why Dylan was so curious about what it is like to be deaf in Rwanda. Dylan is 25, he has a bachelors degree in accountancy and tax and works in the legal tax department of a multinational company in Belgium. it would not be exaggerating to say that had Dylan been Rwandan it would have been nearly impossible for him to have a degree and a good job while being hearing impaired at such a young age. of course Deaf Education in Rwanda has made tremendous progress but it still faces so many challenges that it is nearly impossible for a deaf in Rwanda to be diagnosed on time and be able to learn successfully through the years and become a University Graduate by the time they turn 25. a tour of our school helped Dylan witness what it is like to be deaf in Rwanda from an 8 year old deaf pupil in primary 1. to being a deaf adult receiving vocational training in sewing,knitting or wood carving. his visit did not only highlight the wide difference between African and European deaf education. but it also showcased what deaf children in Africa can achieve with the right resources. it was so inspiring for many of our deaf adults to meet such a brilliant young man it was yet another proof to all of us that DISABILITY IS NOT INABILITY. Thank you Dylan and Maite for the visit, inspiration and memories. We know you have enjoyed the school visit as much as we did and we hope that you also enjoyed your stay to the country of a Thousand Hills.
a tour to our P2 class.
Dylan and Maite visiting our vocational training class
Thank you for the Visit. See you next time.
Our graduation program has kicked off!It is EmCD 's vision that we should enroll children for a limited period of time. This will not only help us make more room for new coming children, it will also serve our ultimate vision of having deaf children who are socio-economically integrated into the Rwandan community. And of course for that integration to be possible graduating from the deaf school back to their communities is the only way.
On July 19th the first of our graduates went back home into her community, she is a graduate in tailoring. she has gone back to her community to work and become a full socio economic member. We believe that Building on marginalized young people’s capital by providing business investments not only reduces poverty, but can also alter negative community perceptions of disability. Louis is EmCD founder and Executive Director but also has an active role of working as Transition and Integration Manager of the Deaf school. He will be in charge of making Hillary's integration back into her community as smooth as possible by paying regular visits to her to find out any setbacks and try to come up with appropriate measures to address them. Thank you to 18 year old Hillary, tailoring graduate at Nyabihu deaf school. After working super hard for 3 months and producing all our beautiful tailored things, We hope that she will keep up her excellent work with her tailoring business start up kit in Burera District Good luck Hillary! 
Hillary( seated on her sewing machine) was accompanied by Louis(first from the right) and was warmly welcomed by her family back home.
THE SECOND TERM OF THE 2019 SCHOOL YEAR IS UNDERWAY AT NDSD. 
It is all smiles at Nyabihu Demonstration school for the deaf as we look forward to a good start to the second term of this school year.
The last term saw 73 children (62%) of our children score 60% and above on average. which is a performance to be very proud of! we will be looking forward to building on it and perform even better this term.
We have started this term with more than one positives that are going to boost the life of the children and everyone at NDSD in general. the biggest of them being that through Deaf Reach, an English charity whose programme in Rwanda seeks to strengthen Deaf schools(https://deafreach.org) we have been able to get funding for water tanks. these tanks are not only an economic benefit due to decreased water bills in the future. but also a requirement for every school in Rwanda for accreditation. again because of quite heavy rains in Nyabihu. it was very recommended to have water tanks as a measure of dealing with rainwater. 
Three water tanks with 5,000 Liter capacity each are now in place.
Now rainwater can no longer cause any damages as it is collected and kept into water tanks for use.
In addition to the water tanks, we have received other donations from Deaf Reach that are very useful for our children's health and sanitation. they are mosquito nets for all the children and an incinerator that will be used to burn waste such as papers, Girls sanitary pads,etc
Our dormitories are now equipped with mosquito nets donated through Deaf Reach
This Incinerator was built locally. and guess by who? Muhoza Ally a deaf young man.
We are looking forward to a more successful second term of the year with smiles!
We are hiring!who would not be excited by the idea of working with us? of course not many! working with us will enable you to change children's lives positively and forever,it will enable you to learn and develop both personally and professionally.
follow these links and learn more about who we want to hire in the next few days! it might be you and we will be very honored to welcoming and working with you. 1. http://www.jobplus.rw/job/administrator/ 2. http://www.jobplus.rw/job/business-development-officer/ A week with visitors means a week with blessings. as we say in kinyarwanda "ABASHYITSI NI UMUGISHA" WHICH MEANS IN ENGLISH "VISITORS ARE A BLESSING".
A Choir from a local ADEPR church visited us last Thursday.
On Thursday last week a delegation from a Local ADEPR church paid a visit to our new school. they wanted to get to know more about us,our activities, and more importantly to meet the children. so that they could hand out some gifts to them, and socialize with them. this delegation was made of Priests from the church, and a Choir. they had a tour of the school, and a presentation session of who we are and what we do. afterwards we discussed about a possibility of partnering with the church mainly through Compassion International a charity that works with children through ADEPR in Rwanda. among the gifts that they brought for the children were Food, Hygienic materials,(Toilet papers,), and learning materials(Books,pens,...). it is very encouraging that now the local people have started to understand the importance of our presence and the work that we are doing with the children.
The visit ended with a sermon and an entertainment session with the choir singing for the children. THANK YOU VERY MUCH ADEPR JENDA. 
They Donated a number of learning and hygienic materials to our children
Food was among the gifts too!!!
The children enjoyed the visit very much!!
We appreciate the kindness of all the men and women from ADEPR JENDA who invested their love,time and money,to put a smile on the faces of our children and to support EmCD. We Thank you very much.
Our dream has become a reality
The building started in early 2018 and we hoped that it would be finished by the summer, But of course, it wasn,t! But in January 2019, our children and staff were able to start their new academic year in the new buildings.
SOME COMMENTS ABOUT THE NEW SCHOOL I am called Madelene . I am now in Primary five. I am very happy to come from my holidays and start the year at new buildings of my school. Our school is very nice. Our dormitory is very good with enough light. We no longer line up for only one toilet; here at the new school there are enough. Our dining hall is well cemented; no holes. I love this school; it is totally different from that one where we were last year. |
Clean, bright, and room to play!
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My name is Innocent. I am the parent of a deaf child. I don’t know how I can express my happiness to see this shining school for our Deaf children. First of all I thank people who gave their money to build this school. Our children’s lives will be much better to be in school like this. The classrooms, dining hall, dormitories, every room looks so beautiful! We feel much safer now our children are in such a wonderful school.
Space to play!
The new Computer Suite!
Some of our staff working with CP children in the Community
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I am Gilbert, Sign Language Interpreter in mainstream. It is surprise to me to be at a very nice school like this one. It was like dream to me; I did not think we could have such good school. Both of us teachers and Children are very comfortable here. Our Deaf learners are not suffering from lack of water. The school has now more than one tap. The school has enough compounds where children will play from.
Bright classrooms!
The new girls dormitory before the beds were put in. Look how bright it is!
Our Community work continues
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Visit to England.
Two of our teaching staff recently had the opportunity to visit England for a three week study trip. Louis, the Founder of the School, and Elie, our Headteacher were able to visit various types of schools for deaf children, deaf clubs, Churches, friends and supporters as well as a bit of sightseeing. It was an amazing experience and they have come back with lots of ideas!
Louis and Elie were accompanied by Omar, a colleague from Umutara Deaf school in The Eastern Province of Rwanda, who is a good friend as well as a colleague.
Here are Elie and Louis arriving at Heathrow airport in November. It was very cold!
Staff at Colman Junior School, Norwich
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Ely Deaf Club
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Meeting at Cambridge Regional College
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Church coffee morning
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Site seeing in Cambridge
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We have visitors in Rwanda too!
 Prof. Wendy Teaching NDSD staff how to use the Audiometer
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Our visitor Milton with the children. Do you recognise him?
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A visit to Nyabihu has to end with a good Dance as well!!
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Louis Welcoming the Members of Parliament at our Center
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Here, Members of the National Parliament(Chamber of Deputies) Visited our center and our activities. They are from the Community development commission and were accompanied by Nyabihu District leaders including the Mayor and the vice Mayor in charge of Economic affairs. We are very fortunate to be visited by such Important people from the National level as they also Promised to advocate more for our Center and the people with Disabilities in General. The District leaders also promised us a stronger and more fruitful Partnership.
First Right:Antoine Mugwiza Vice Mayor in Charge of economic affairs Nyabihu District,Members of Parliament,standing is Ngabo Amiel the President of the Community development Commission in the parliament(Chamber of deputies) |
They visited our vocational class. This picture was taken in the old school. The room is small and dark. The new school rooms are much better!
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We thank all our visitors and invite everyone Interested to visit our work!
You are always welcome.
You are always welcome.
Sports WE won Again!!!!
AN AFRICAN CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO LEISURE AND SPORTS
The entire Africa celebrates the International Day of African Child on 16 June every year. This is done purposely to raise the awareness of the rights of African Children. It was to mark that occasion the National Deaf Sports Committee (NDSCO) organized volley ball and basketball tournaments which took place at AMAHORO National stadium of Rwanda ; as the way of celebrating this day in the year 2016.
The triumphant Nyabihu Volleyball team with their coaches.
NPC and NDSCO leaders were present and opened the tournament officially. In the Volley ball competition, there were three teams - Nyabihu Demonstration Centre for the Deaf (NDCD), CJSM Butare and VISION Deaf Nyarugenge. Among these three teams NDCD has won the trophy.
In the basketball competition, there were also three teams - HVP-Gatagara/Nyanza, Institut Philippe Smaldone/Nyarugenge and Maison d’Accueil l’Esperance /Rulindo. In this competition, HVP-Gatagara/ Nyanza won the trophy.
The officials presented the trophies to both teams.
Sports plays a paramount role in many ways. It helps to build and maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints; helps to control weight and reduce fat; and prevents or delays the development of high blood pressure. African children should be able to access Sports activities, just like children in other countries. And we also know that physical fitness is strongly linked to improved academic achievements.
Thus, Physical activity, and sports positively affect aspects of personal development among young people, such as self-esteem, goal-setting, and leadership. Therefore, it should be a must that each and every African child be assisted by his/her parents teachers or guardians in his/her physical, social, cognitive and educational growth and improvement through physical activities and this should be an African routine.
In the basketball competition, there were also three teams - HVP-Gatagara/Nyanza, Institut Philippe Smaldone/Nyarugenge and Maison d’Accueil l’Esperance /Rulindo. In this competition, HVP-Gatagara/ Nyanza won the trophy.
The officials presented the trophies to both teams.
Sports plays a paramount role in many ways. It helps to build and maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints; helps to control weight and reduce fat; and prevents or delays the development of high blood pressure. African children should be able to access Sports activities, just like children in other countries. And we also know that physical fitness is strongly linked to improved academic achievements.
Thus, Physical activity, and sports positively affect aspects of personal development among young people, such as self-esteem, goal-setting, and leadership. Therefore, it should be a must that each and every African child be assisted by his/her parents teachers or guardians in his/her physical, social, cognitive and educational growth and improvement through physical activities and this should be an African routine.
We WON!!! Using the computers that Isobel had sent to us from England over the last two years, Louis was able to enter the TIGO competition. It is an ICT competition to help disadvantaged people out of poverty by increasing their ICT skills. With the money, we have been able to buy new laptops, employ an ICT teacher and build computer stations.
The new Centre
Because of the generosity of one local man, the land for the new centre is now twice as big as the original plot. Its needs to be too, as the school now has 130 children, not the 60 or 70 we had when the idea of a new build was first taken seriously. Here is Louis standing in the middle of the new enlarged piece of land. We now (2015) have about a third of the money needed to build the whole new Centre. It is very exciting, and we have an English architect who has drawn up the plans. We are in the process of selecting a local construction company - and soon we will actually see the spades at work on our plot! |
OUR DREAM IS NOW A REALITY!
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Here are the new children whom we have welcomed to out Centre this term with some of their teachers. They are wearing their smart new uniform, made at the Centre for them.
- Since April 2015, our Center is now a partner with Chance for Childhood an English charity working in Rwanda to help children with hearing impairments.To summarise, this is what they are helping us with:
- Topping up our ordinary budget, for example: helping us with rent costs, food expenses, and teachers salaries.
- Funding 2 new teachers and a Head Teacher as well as giving a salary to the Director of the centre And guess this one!!!
- They have enabled us to enrol 54 new children to our center. These children were identified by CfC in their project called Empowerment, Equity, and Education(EEE), which aims to identify children in specific rural areas of Rwanda who have significant hearing loss and are not in school. So as a partner organization, we will benefit from the EEE work by having these newly identified children. We were very excited to accept the responsibility to care for this large number of children, who without us would have no access to education or communication development. Our Centre has now grown in number to 130 children.
We continue to appreciate the funding which we have from an English Rotary Club and the Rotary Club of Kigali which will pays for two teachers. The qualified teachers that are employed are working well and have become experienced in teaching deaf children. This means that our Centre can continue to develop and improve, both in the facilities we can offer these children and in improved quality of education.
Football News!
25/feb/2015: Deaf sports day
On this day in partnership with Chance for Childhood ,VSO(voluntary service overseas ) and NPC(National Paralympic committee ) they had organized a Deaf sports day simply because deaf people don’t attend any Paralympic games
So our Center was Invited along with seven others, to take part in the games. We had 3 weeks to prepare for the competition.
The event was to take place at the Amahoro National stadium in Kigali. We travelled from Nyabihu on the morning of the competition, and should have been very tired because it was a 125kms journey, but we were very ecited. When we arrived we had a warm up of around 30 minutes
On this day in partnership with Chance for Childhood ,VSO(voluntary service overseas ) and NPC(National Paralympic committee ) they had organized a Deaf sports day simply because deaf people don’t attend any Paralympic games
So our Center was Invited along with seven others, to take part in the games. We had 3 weeks to prepare for the competition.
The event was to take place at the Amahoro National stadium in Kigali. We travelled from Nyabihu on the morning of the competition, and should have been very tired because it was a 125kms journey, but we were very ecited. When we arrived we had a warm up of around 30 minutes
We were very smart in our newly donated kits. It seems like they came with luck!!because we were obviously the best performers andlooked very smart as well
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 Germaine and Dorcus in their new Kits. They say, ‘Thank you’.
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As soon as everyone arrived we started a very successful sports day. because in brief we went back home with the Athletic's Trophy as the team who have won most gold medals in running, four gold medals, and three silvers. As well as this, in the football we came home as runners up with each of our players receiving a silver medal, as you can see in the pictures
