Timothy Barnes reports from his recent trip to Rwanda. Timothy is Executive Director of UCL Advances, the centre for
entrepreneurship at University College London, and is also the National
Chairman of the Tory Reform Group (blog here). He is writing in a personal capacity. Fiona Hodgson's report will be our final report and will be apprearing in the next few days.
This morning, I walked towards a waiting class of students with a slight drizzle coming down. It was a cool morning with jackets needed, if not quite jumper weather. At home in the UK, this would not be unusual, but it was not what I expected of Rwanda. As I neared the classroom in the middle of the university campus, some of my students rushed past to ensure that they arrived before me.
I have spent the last two weeks in Rwanda as part of the Conservative Party’s Project Umubano, organised by Andrew Mitchell MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. I am one of over 100 Members of Parliament, PPC’s and ordinary party members who are here to assist a wide-variety of development activities and have come here at their own expense. Some are working to teach English to primary school teachers, while others are working to help develop legal processes, healthcare, the travel industry and the financial markets. Tobias Ellwood MP is leading a team that are building and fitting out a community centre. All are volunteers who have taken up a large proportion of their annual leave to come here at their own, not inconsiderable, expense.
The project that I am working on is part of the largest initiative on the project, which is focussed on the private sector. My work is intended to boost entrepreneurship in the country. Last week I delivered a three-day workshop to students at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, known as KIST, and this week I am repeating the course in the southern city of Butare, at the National University of Rwanda (NUR). The climate here is cooler and wetter than in the capital and the pace of life is slower. This is a university town, as many in Britain would recognise it.
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