Umubano

Program Structure

There are two Umubano teams working together for the Umubano sister school program.
One side consists of Team Rwanda, which researches and works with schools within Rwanda. The other side is Team US, which helps build the partnership in the United States. Team Rwanda is affiliated with Amani Africa, a local NGO that promotes human rights through sports. Team US is affiliated with Discover Worlds, a NGO run entirely by students that is dedicated to education about important world issues. Team Rwanda and Team US work together to establish a list of schools in the US and Rwanda that are participating in the program, and then facilitate the initial transfer of correspondence between the schools. The two teams also conduct educational sessions with each school, which can include assemblies, letter-writing sessions, fundraising ideas workshops, and presentations about the other countries. The Umubano program staff commits to facilitating correspondence between the partner schools until the schools feel that they are capable of continuing the correspondence on their own.

Benefits for the Students

Cultural Knowledge
Through presentations done by Umubano staff and volunteers, the students will be exposed to their sister school’s culture, along with its brief history (the depth the presentation will go into is one of the options discussed before hand with the teacher) as a civilization. The pictures used in the presentation will show the students what an entirely different society looks like but are also used to show similarities between students in Rwanda and students in the US.
From the letters: The students will be able to learn from the letters they send back and forth to one another. Getting to share experiences and understand the daily lives of their pen-pals will expose them to a new culture. Even small lessons such as the language spoken in Rwanda will help educate the American youth. This can encourage both groups of students to learn an entirely new language and learn more about new and different cultures.

Friendship
The students will develop a friendship with someone their age who lives half way across the world. They can build relationships, write about their lives, and share with those around them about their new friends. Students can write about the differences and similarities as well! For the rest of their lives, the students can feel a connection to someone despite the far distance.

Cultural Sensitivity
Stereotypes can easily be formed with the lack of access of information about foreign countries. Through learning about each others’ country, the students will break down misconceptions they might have. Rwanda’s lush landscape filled with hills is far from the safari images that are commonly associated with Africa in the United States. In addition, the legacy of genocide in Rwanda generally overshadows other historical events and cultural traditions that can both fascinate and inform students from abroad. In addition, the limited information of the United States in Rwanda portrays the United States as a land filled with wealth, crime, and rap music. Rwandan students can learn about the people in the United States and its broad range of cultures and lifestyles.Through presentations, communication, and exchanges, students from both countries are empowered to form more factually accurate conceptions of the other country.