TEACHER TURNING TRASH TO TREASURE IN RWANDA
ATEACHER from Wales has been helping children in Rwanda to learn maths by transforming everyday rubbish into learning aids. Mary Watkins, from Newport, has been working with volunteers to run Blue Peter-style training sessions to show teachers across the world how to make hands-on teaching materials such as abacuses, dice and multiplication charts.
The 57-year-old VSO volunteer’s makeshift classroom tools made out of waste such as sticks, stones, plastic bottles, cereal boxes, milk cartons, bottle tops and loo rolls are helping to make maths lessons practical and fun as part of a UK aid-funded project called Numeracy For All.
Mary’s latest Rwanda visit coincided with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ visit to the African country for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
On Saturday, the UK Government announced further funding for Mary’s Numeracy For All initiative, as part of a new £27m Active Citizenship Through Inclusive Volunteering & Empowerment (Active) partnership with overseas volunteering charity VSO.
Mary said: “This new funding for Numeracy For All will help teachers in the world’s poorest countries give children a ladder out of poverty by giving them the numeracy skills they need.
“One of the biggest barriers to educational progress is that teachers armed with only a blackboard and chalk do not have the practical teaching aids that are crucial to supporting lessons.
“Teaching aids are expensive for schools with limited funding, but by channelling my inner Blue Peter presenter, we have come up with creative ways to overcome that obstacle and make learning more fun.”
Mary fell in love with Rwanda after volunteering with VSO there, training student teachers in the country in 2014.
VSO started using her innovative approach across its network in 2018, after asking her to help produce a guidebook on her quirky teaching aids and film video tutorials on how to make them.
The online videos mean people can watch the training sessions from anywhere, and help many more children.
When the pandemic hit and travel became impossible, Mary shifted her teaching to Zoom lessons for volunteers working in different countries.
So far, more than 13,000 teachers and hundreds of thousands of children have benefited from Numeracy for All training sessions in Rwanda, Nepal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Myanmar and Mozambique.
The UK Government’s £27m Active partnership with VSO will enable the charity to make Numeracy For All available in every country where it runs education programmes.
Lord Ahmad, Minister for South
Asia, North Africa, the United Nations and the Commonwealth at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, said: “I am delighted the UK Government’s partnership with VSO is helping support Mary’s innovative Numeracy For All work – empowering people living in lowincome countries across the Commonwealth and beyond to take control of their futures.
“The new Active programme will be a unique opportunity to use the expertise of volunteers from every corner of the UK to support our partner countries to take the lead in their own development.
“By unleashing the potential of individuals and communities through voluntary work, while supporting the best locally led organisations to meet the priorities of the people and communities they benefit, we can bring about lasting, inclusive change.”
Mary’s work with children in Rwanda earned her a British Empire Medal from the Mayor of Newport in February after being recognised in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list.
The rugby-mad charity worker also runs Friends of Rwandan Rugby (FoRR) with her husband Glyn, which has been credited with sparking an explosion of interest in the sport. Their efforts were even credited with the Rwanda national team – nicknamed the Silverbacks after the country’s famous gorillas – taking to the pitch for the country’s first ever World Cup qualifier, against Ivory Coast in 2020.
The charity has been training rugby development officers to go into schools to teach the sport and supply donations of rugby kit from Welsh clubs including Dragons, Risca, Caldicot, Bonymaen and Oakdale.
Prior to coronavirus lockdown restrictions, FoRR was teaching rugby to children and young adults in more than 100 schools and communities in 10 out of 30 districts across Rwanda.
Mary said: “South Africa has shown how rugby can help unite a nation, so Wales can be proud of the part we’ve played helping Rwanda fall in love with the game.
“Rugby is something new and fresh and is helping bring communities together that were scarred by the 1994 genocide.
“The coronavirus lockdown has been a little heartbreaking as it came shortly after the excitement of Rwanda playing its first ever World Cup qualifier, and it would have been great to keep up that momentum.
“Rwanda only started lifting its very strict restrictions in September and up until about three months ago you could only play or train together if you had a lateral flow test, which costs £5 at a clinic and is unaffordable in a country where many earn £5 a month. We’ve just visited a primary school we raised £300 for to flatten the sloped land that was its play area into a rugby pitch with eucalyptus tree rugby posts.
“I’m almost certain it’s now the only school in Rwanda with permanent rugby posts, as most use bamboo strapped to football posts.
“My big dream is that one day Wales will play Rwanda at a World Cup.”