Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) approach has helped the communities in Nyamasheke and Rusizi Districts in Nyugwe Cluster to shift its view in regard to social responsibility. The main challenge in these communities is not the absence of schools, rather inadequate involvement of parents with their children’s schools and lack of citizen engagements. For the communities, the government especially local leaders were the one failing at taking care of the education, child protection and delivery of quality services.

To find lasting solutions, the CVA approach has been implemented by CLADHO in partnership with World Vision Rwanda with the goal of identifying root causes to poor service delivery and ineffective performance as well as developing an action plans that clearly outlines ways to improve existing services.

During a community gathering at; EP Nyabinanga located in Kilimbi Sector, Nyamasheke District; GS St. Nicolas Nyamasheke located in Kagano Sector Nyamasheke District; and EP Bigeyo located in Gitambi Sector, Nyamasheke District; Ryankana Primary School and GS Bugarama both located in Bugarama Sector, Rusizi District; GS Mashesha located in Gitambi Sector in Rusizi District; parents and teachers with the help of CVA group discussed child education and protection rights, and clarified parents’ rights and responsibilities.

“The relationship and cooperation between teachers, parents and local leaders have improved since the gathering took place. Before the gathering parents would not come to school to talk to teachers about children’s performance and behavior. Today parents come to the school and talk to the school administration about how their children are performing” – Director of Studies, Ryankana PS said.

Parents in these communities came to understand that they have an important role to play in the school life of their children. After the gathering, parents and school administration find it easier to talk about challenges they face and agree on how to solve them.

“After the community gathering, parents who could not afford school feeding contribution decided to come and prepare school garden as their contribution. With this, the school saved over 3 million that would be spent on buying vegetables and labour for school gardens. The savings in addition to money saved from capitation grant have been used to buy smart water filter” – Head Teacher GS Bugarama said.

 Smart Water Filter installed at GS Bugarama

Active parents and community involvement in school affairs has improved their responsibility and collective ownership of school infrastructures. Before, community members were negligent with common thinking that schools are for the government and the parent’s role is sending children to school.

“In community gathering, we realized our school – EP Bigeyo had no fence, and strangers would pass freely in the school during class hours disrupting learner’s attention, animals would pass through and destroy trees, some people would steal school materials. So we agreed to organize a community work.  Community members contributed poles and 11kgs of nails, many turned up to fence the school” – A parent said.

A local leader, explained the difference that the CVA approach has made in their community “These sensitization and awareness raising have helped us a lot as local leaders, parents now understand their responsibilities by sending their children to school well equipped with all necessities, this has reduced school dropout”

“It’s not poor parents, even well off parents were neglecting their children, they do not attend parents meetings, because they think it’s the government that plans” – Sector Education Officer said.

• At GS Nicolas Kagano, 8 children from vulnerable families have been supported to return to school by community members providing Rwf 500 each. Also, at this school, learners have set up a village in school where children coming from the same village identify and follow up on children in their villages who are absent and when they return back home, they visit their families to know why they didn’t turn up for classes. With this practice, school attendance has been improved while school dropout reduced.

• Presidents of village in school committees at GS Nicolas posing in agroup photo with CVA staff and CVA focal person in Kagano Sector
• At Ryankana PS, 11 children who had dropped out of school were returned by their parents after the community gathering. At the same school, children representatives are members of school administration committee and school feeding committee.
• At GS Mashesha, 15 children have returned back to school.

The CVA approach effectively provided the communities with a realistic plan of action in order to address issues that were on a daily basis, affecting children and ultimately the whole community. Importantly, working together as a community to improve service delivery in education and child protection has enabled them realize their potential to resolve their own problems. Thanks to World Vision Rwanda and CLADHO for this project.