Akilah Students Are Committed to Giving Back to Their Communities

From encouraging girls to pursue careers in tech to supporting Burundian refugees in Rwanda — Akilah students are committed to giving back to their communities.

Community service and leadership are core parts of the Akilah experience. All students are required to complete a Social Change Project, and many go well beyond that to mentor younger students or raise funds for those in need.

Creating Sustainable Social Change

During their Social Change Project, Akilah students must identify a social problem and then propose and implement a solution. It is important for students to learn that they can change their communities, even with few resources at hand, says Jacqueline Semakula, a leadership and social change instructor.

“After five weeks in the classroom, we send the girls out to local communities to identify challenges and work out solutions in collaboration with local leaders and the people they are trying to reach. It’s important for us to emphasize that this is not about charity. It is about creating sustainable impact and giving back to their communities using the skills and knowledge they picked up in the classroom,” Jaqueline says.

Teaching New Skills

Last year, six Akilah students teamed up to help 50 women support their families and communities. The women, who lived in a community on the outskirts of Kigali, were primarily street vendors and didn’t have a steady income. For four weeks, the students taught the women how to produce body lotion and soap using affordable ingredients from the market. They then trained the women to sell the products as a business. When the project ended, the women formed a cooperative called Umucyu, the Kinyarwanda word for “light”, and made a plan to sell their soap to restaurants and hospitals.

Sakina, an Akilah student, teaches business skills to women from a local community.

Sakina Usengimana, who recently graduated with a Diploma in Information Systems, was among the students working on the project. “We wanted to create a project to help reduce poverty in a sustainable way. We decided to teach these women a tangible skill that can help them have an income and be independent,” she says.

Leading the Way for Girls in Tech

Akilah students recognize that they are role models for girls in Rwanda, particularly in fields like ICT. Last August, five of Akilah’s Information Systems students volunteered as mentors and co-teachers at TechKobwa, a weeklong technology camp for girls in rural secondary schools. The camp aims to spark girls’ interest in technology and build their confidence with computers.

Students participate in TechKobwa, a weeklong technology camp for girls.

Nickita Ishimwe, who recently graduated from Akilah’s Information Systems program, taught algorithms and computer science at the latest TechKobwa in December. She hopes to see more girls gain confidence in ICT.

“Girls don’t always feel very comfortable around computers, and often the boys will end up taking the lead. Here we give them a chance to practice, experiment with tech, and gain confidence,” she says.

“I want to have a positive impact and show these girls that if I can pursue a degree in IT, so can they. They just need a little push and some good role models. And once they come back to their schools, they won’t stay in the background anymore.”

Akilah alumna Nickita, left, mentored young girls at the TechKobwa camp in August 2016.

Supporting Burundian Refugees

For Akilah students, the sense of community extends beyond campus and their country. Last year, students held a fundraising event to collect clothes, shoes, money, and other items for Burundian refugees living in Mahama Refugee Camp in eastern Rwanda.

Just before Christmas, Sano Shengero and Marie Fidela Ndahimana, the organizers of the fundraiser, traveled from Kigali to the camp to deliver the donations.

“We are proud to give back as the Akilah family. It is important to show support to our Burundian brothers and sisters living as refugees in our country. It feels good to be able to make a contribution — even if it is a small one — and we hope to do more of this in the future,” Marie said as dozens of bags of clothes, sanitary pads, and shoes were unloaded at the camp.

Akilah students donated supplies to Mahama Refugee Camp.

The camp is home to just over 50,000 refugees who were forced to flee Burundi* following political violence in the country. Akilah’s donations were presented to the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA), a humanitarian organization. “Donations like yours help us to support refugees in Mahama with their basic needs …. Thank you, Akilah, for having the hearts of helping,” the ADRA representative said when receiving the donations.

*Burundi has a special place in Akilah’s history. After setting up a campus in Burundi’s capital city, Bujumbura, political instability forced us to close it down in 2015. Forty Burundian students were successfully transferred to our Kigali campus to continue their studies.