Bringing in The Light

This March, a delegation of Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) students traveled to the neighboring community of Bigaga to provide residents without access to electricity with solar-powered lamps and the training they needed to use them. This Tikkun Olam community service project had been years in the making. In 2019, members of the student delegation began designing their own solar powered lanterns, with the goal of distributing the lights to those in need. Due to COVID-related delays, the students are still working to mass produce their custom lamps. However, a group of international visitors from the San Francisco-based initiative TechWomen were so inspired by the kids’ vision that one of the guests organized a donation of 400 solar-powered lamps for the project. We sat down with two of the kids behind the effort, Josue Byiringiro and Blaise Cyusa Nkurunziza, to learn more.

Can you tell us how your project got started?

Blaise: Some of us grew up in homes with no light, and we could not study once it got dark. After arriving at ASYV, we saw different opportunities to solve certain problems we faced at home.

Josue: Emmy, an ASYV electronics teacher, helped us get the materials we needed, and we started working on the project every Friday for two hours after lunch. Then the pandemic interrupted our work.

How did this initiative become your grade’s Tikkun Olam community service project?

Josue: We presented it at a grade meeting, and our class all chose together to implement the project as our Tikkun Olam legacy project. Our grade name is Umucyo, which means light in Kinyarwanda, and our project both helped solve a problem our neighbors face while also relating to our grade name and values. It was like hitting two birds with one stone!

Blaise: Tikkun Olam is a way of repairing the world. As Anne Heyman [the Village founder] said, “You and I can change the world.” I also believe that if people can put their hands together and put themselves in others’ shoes, we can impact the world and create change together.

What do you hope your project might grow to become? What are your own plans for the future?

Josue: We hope the solar lamps we handed out to our neighbors will help them greatly and that our project can be expanded to provide light to more people. One of our world’s main problems is climate change, and by using solar energy we can help provide a more sustainable future. After I graduate in July, I want to study robotics to help solve people’s problems.

Blaise: If we cannot take charge to restore our ecosystems, we will no longer be able to call our planet a blue planet but rather a red one. This will cause many problems, including more diseases like this pandemic. I plan to study environmental science and photography after I graduate, and I would love to encourage other youth to participate in expanding renewable energy.

Nature Watch

The 16 members of ASYV’s student-led Nature Watch Initiative observed Earth Day 2022 by breaking ground on the club’s most ambitious project yet: The ASYV Bamboo Forest. To mark the occasion, which culminated in the planting of seven new trees, club president Deborah Mukeshimana said, “Let this not be just an event but a spirit that we carry with us to conserve our environment.”

In addition to a thicket of bamboo, the eco-park will include a student-designed ornamental pond, bird feeding trays, and a welcoming environment for all creatures native to the area. Once complete, the park will not only provide students with a calming place to get away, it will also help decrease carbon emissions. “My priority is doing something that will impact people at large,” said club member Cyuzuzo Wivine.

The Nature Watch Initiative was founded last year by ASYV geography teacher Hilary Mbabazi, who wanted to pass on his lifelong passion for conservation by empowering students to directly address local environmental challenges and protect local wildlife. Other club activities include running a Village notice board that lists individual actions that help perserve the environment and patroling the Village to turn off electrical devices when they are not in use.

“I feel like it is important to create awareness among people about how we can conserve the environment so that there is a healthy chain of living with other life,” said Deborah. “Snakes and other animals at ASYV are so important for our ecosystem, and our actions are also important for them.”