My time in Rwanda with LRTT

Charles Hanen went out to Rwanda back in 2016, he shares some insight into his time with us.

I first came across LRTT through a colleague who did a Summer project in Nepal. She came back speaking very highly of her experience, citing one of the main benefits was how inspirational the teachers she worked with were. This and my passion for improving global education — one of the most important global issues we face — persuaded me to get involved in LRTT.

For those unfamiliar with the organisation, LRTT stands for Limited Resource Teacher Training. It does exactly what it says on the tin, trains teachers in areas which lack the resources to do so. As a programme it recruits teachers from the UK, USA and Australia and sends them to developing countries to partner up with schools and share skills and experiences. This can be through professional development, conferences or coaching.

When we arrived in Nyamasheke we had a really warm welcome demonstrating how grateful these communities are for the work of LRTT. A highlight of the experience was meeting our team of 11 teachers and working with them for two weeks. They were hilarious and everyone just worked really well together. If I am honest, I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would — I thought it would involve delivering content on training without much dialogue and personal interaction between the teachers and the participants. But the reality was the complete opposite — it was an interactive experience with benefits for all of us. They learnt from us but we also learnt a lot from the Rwandan teachers as well. In a word, it was amazing.

My favourite memories are the coaching conversations with Fellows and Rwandan teachers. Helping teachers with their lesson planning and then going back and seeing the local teachers putting into practice some of the techniques we shared was really rewarding — particularly when those techniques reduced their workload. Some of the teachers have got classes of nearly 60 children so to see our techniques making their lives easier feel great and will stay with me.

LRTT has equipped me to take on new challenges within teaching back home, it has also given me some incredibly happy memories.

Are you a teacher? The next story could be yours. Find out about our 2017 and 2018 Fellowship opportunities at lrtt.org.