17th July 2009
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| Colleagues: Sarah Nicholls with delegates from Rwanda and Burundi. |
Rwanda, just a couple of degrees south of the equator, is the ‘land of a thousand hills’, fertile, green and beautiful. It is hard to imagine the horrific scenes that took place there15 years ago when at least half a million Rwandans were slaughtered.
The conflict involved the two main tribes, the majority Hutus and the minority ruling Tutsis, and stemmed from a civil war in 1990.
Today, Rwanda, which is part of the fast growing East African group of nations, including, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania, is moving forward.
The government has a vision for 2020, which makes pacts with individuals. One is for the men to provide inside toilets in their homes. Tarmac roads are scarce but fibre optic cables are being laid and the mobile phone system is providing an instant communications network. This will help in the development of the country’s health infrastructure.
In 2004, the CIEH’s Wales Region twinned with Rwanda through the Kigali Health Institute, the fastest growing institute for developing human health sector resources.
Kato Njunwa and Zacharia Bigirimana set up the first environmental health course in the country, which aims to provide a qualified EHP for every health district. The course is taught on a campus in Kibuye, on the shores of Lake Kivu, which forms the boundary with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The twinning has already provided books, laptops, a projector, a digital camera, sound meters and a camcorder for the course. Most importantly, relationships are prospering through visits and Welsh CIEH members were invited to attend the first environmental health conference in Rwanda in May, organised by the Kigali Health Institute in collaboration with Development Partnerships in Higher Education and the Ministry of Health. It was hosted by the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology.
About 90 delegates and speakers attended the two-day event, which was officially opened by the Minister of Health, Dr Richard Sezibera, and the vice-rector of Kigali Health Institute. The opening was filmed for news bulletins on Rwanda Television.
Speakers presented papers on environmental health training and practice and trends and challenges in Rwanda. The subjects included building standards for sanitation and hygiene facilities, malaria control, environmental health for children, disasters and emergencies, waste and water safety management and food safety.
The speakers represented a range of organisations, including Unicef, the Ministry of Health, the Rwandan National Police, World Health Organisation, USAID, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, University of Wales Institute Cardiff and countries including the UK.
Four delegates attended from Wales – Sarah Johns and Mark Elliott (CIEH trustee) from Pembrokeshire County Council, Sarah Nicholls from Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and George Karani from University of Wales Institute Cardiff.
They are all closely involved with the Rwanda Association of Environmental Health.
After the conference the group visited Kibuye, where the environmental health degree is taught. The visit aimed to explore how the RWAEH’s overseas group could further support the training of EHPs and the profession within Rwanda.