The Educational Resilience Program
Our Educational Resilience Program (ERP) trains teachers from across Rwanda in education technology, student-centered teaching, and life skills concepts like sexual and reproductive health and mental health.
The program was created in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology, and the Rwandan Ministry of Education.
National Impact
While the Rwandan education system has made significant progress in recent years, many teachers still lack expertise in the student-centered learning approaches and digital technologies that will improve their ability to reach their students and help the students succeed in the country’s rapidly evolving economy.
Since launching in August 2021, the Educational Resilience Program (ERP) has trained 500 teachers and 152 directors of studies from 171 schools across Rwanda. These ERP graduates have gone on to offer peer trainings to nearly 2,000 additional teachers. By the end of the 2023–2024 school year, the ERP will have helped approximately 125,000 students access critical-thinking education, digital skills, and life skills.
Currently, we are collaborating with graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University-Africa to build a digital platform able to share ERP lessons and facilitate discussions with up to 60,000 teachers. While we cannot bring all the world’s children to the Village, we now can bring part of ASYV to kids around Rwanda—and possibly, one day, around the world.
“In my class, there was a learner who used to perform poorly in all tests, but after the training at Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, I tried to be closer to the child and talked to her. I identified her problem. I started to help her through guidance and counseling, and now she is emotionally stable, and her performance is increasing.”
The Intore Learning Community
The ERP teacher trainings take place in ASYV’s new Intore Learning Community, a state-of-the-art facility that opened in summer 2021.
In addition to the ERP, the building houses specialized career and workforce development programs for students and alumni and longer-term visitors to ASYV. This includes high school, college, and adult groups taking part in Service Learning Trips.