The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has donated 36,936 English dictionaries to fifty six secondary schools under the Forum for African Women Educationists (FAWE). The dictionaries will be donated to all secondary schools which are benefiting from the Ambassadors’ Scholarship Programme across the country. According to Joseph Rwagatare, the Head Teacher of Rwandan Schools and Headmaster of Kagarama Secondary School, the shift in the education curriculum where English replaced French as the medium of education, calls for faster ways of realizing Rwanda’s educational goals. “Dictionaries are very expensive and not readily available on the local market,” Rwagatare said, “…the implementation of this programme will make it possible for this shift to move faster and it will not find us wanting.” The US government for the past nine years has been funding and giving scholarships to support girl child education. According to Odette Mutanguha, the FAWE Rwanda Coordinator, over 1,200 orphans and vulnerable girls in120 schools around the country have benefited from this support. Of these 595 have graduated from high school and 108 have got government scholarships to study in different universities around the country. Six girls have been awarded the Presidential Best Performers scholarship. Dennis Weller, the USAID Mission Director, also attended the event and said, “The dictionaries are symbolic of the kind of partnership that the US has with Rwanda.” The US Ambassador to Rwanda, Stuart Symington reminded the girl children that they had the future of Rwanda and the world in their hands. He said that with their young and energetic minds, they could overcome the futility of the world and make a better future. “The reason the US invests time and money in Rwanda today, is because your future is our future,” Symington said. Ends
