An Initiative dedicated to continued improvement of the quality of education in Rwanda with a focus on building and developing a model secondary school for girls in the Nyamata region, Maranyundo School not only opens doors for children of the modest poor families in Bugesera district into the rest of the world but also offers a good foundation for development.
It is the school’s development oriented philosophy that attracted the Development Bank of Rwanda to associate with Maranyundo, offering Rwf15million in support of the school’s expansion whilst pledging continued partnership.
A cheque was handed over to the school’s administration on February 25th.
The six year old school was inaugurated in 2008 by Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame. Since then, it has only served as a lower secondary (O’ Level) school.
However, with the urge to make tangible contribution to academic excellence and problem-solving oriented education, parents and teachers of Maranyundo School dreamed of having a fully fledged high school to educate Rwandan girls.
The drive sent the school’s administration on a search for sources of financing the expansion resulting into fundraising functions through which BRD was similarly reached.
“Our interest is in anything that has potential to stir development in Rwanda thus when we were introduced to the school’s dream of expanding, we saw a project that sought after a similar goal like ours; transforming lives for better,” Alex Kanyankole, BRD’s CEO said.
According to Mr. Kanyankole, the support reflects the bank’s spirit of cooperating with the rest of the community in delivering Rwanda’s dreams of economic development and transformation.
Kanyankole further noted that the support was just a beginning to a long partnership between the bank and the school. “We will follow-up to see how else to support the school’s expansion project.”
Maranyundo School is a privately run enterprise. However owing to its location and the philosophy of its foundation, the school includes an education-support program covering girl children from some of Bugesera’s poorest families, who could otherwise never have afforded a school with similar facilities.
Teta Natasha is one of the learners benefiting from the bursary program.
“A school such as Maranyundo is considered as one for the wealthy. For children like me whose families find it almost impossible to afford even the basic needs of food, shelter and clothing, it is day dreaming to think of attending it. But with support from various communities including BRD I am a learner here,” Natasha who is now a popular public speaker and a student leader in the school said.
Concurring with Natasha, the school’s Head Teacher Sr. Marie Juvenal commended BRD’s support scoring that with similar community efforts; quality education will become accessible even to the least advantaged children.
Annually Maranyundo, which has listed among the best performers in national exams for three years, enrolls 60 students half of whom come from Bugesera district.
Oftentimes according to Sr. Juvenal, students from Bugesera are from poor families hence only joining the school through either partial or full sponsorships organized by the school.
With the support from BRD and other well-wishers, the school plans to expand and include an advanced secondary level (A’ Level) which will place greater emphasis on sciences and technology as a way of building a girl community in Rwanda that will take part in solving the country’s challenges.
Provided everything goes as planned, the expansion is envisioned to be completed by early 2015.
For parents, BRD’s support is a wake-up call to make extra efforts in order to deliver a high quality institution of academic excellence for Rwanda.
“With this support from BRD, we are more than determined to pursue the dream of a full secondary school we both levels which can produce globally competitive students to contribute to achieving Rwanda’s envisioned development,” Dr. Eugene Mutimura, one of the parents of Maranyundo School offered.
According to Mr. Kanyankole, the support to Maranyundo is part of the bank’s unwavering support to community development through various Corporate Social Responsibility undertakings.
