Our Lady of Africa Training Center in Butare
Our
Lady of Africa Training Center started in April last year with the objective of
improving the life standard of youth and enhance their human and Christian
values. The center aims at providing
skills to the youth especially those living in difficult situations in order to
help them be self- reliant. For the time
being, a Tailoring course is offered for six months and the first group of ten students
completed the program successfully.
During the six months, we learnt a lot of
things in this field as programmed and in terms of human values. We learnt how
to sew well our own clothes and clothes of others. Apart from tailoring, we
learnt a lot from MSOLA sisters, our teacher and the MSOLA collaborators. At different occasions, they
gave us sessions which helped us in changing our personal behavior and our way
of relating with other group members.
We learnt how to live together, with self –respect and respect of
others. We learnt also to build a family
among ourselves by helping one another and sharing the joys and pains. When one
has a problem, we could help her/him to solve it or to look for solutions. They
taught us how to be self –confident, to
respect our dignity, and as a result others would respect us, which would prevent
us from falling into temptation.
During
the course we met with people from different ,culture ,behavior, and mentality,
which helped us to have an open mind. We also learnt to keep time in what we do,
follow the program and try as much as possible to have the necessary materials
for the work.
We are grateful to have a teacher who is
competent in her subject, who encouraged us in what we were learning and left
us free to ask her questions about what we did not understand.
At
the end of the program we are going to
work together as a group so as to help
one another to master the tailoring skills and get used to the clients. The community of sisters rented us sewing machines
which will be paid for within one year and they continues to accompany us during this year.
What we received during this period will help
us for personal development, the development of our families and of our country
in general. It will also help us to live peacefully with others wherever we
will be working regardless of who will be working with us. We will be able to
respect our own program and the programs of others especially those of our
clients. We will strive to do our work well and to share the skills we got with
others. We wish to continue working
together in a sewing workshop so that we can reach sustainable development. We
still need support so that we can get materials in order to start our sewing
workshop which will enable us to have a better future.
Secretary
: Françoise MUGABEKAZI for the group.
We wish them good luck and many blessings.
