Emmanuel Ahishakiye (above), a member of PIH’s translation and training team here in Rwanda, recently traveled to the US to speak at the FACE AIDS national student conference, hosted this year at the University of Texas-Austin. Here is what he wrote of his experience:

It’s Saturday April 12th, at lunch time, Dave, Face Aids Executive Director, introduces me to the conference attendance. I have prepared a small power presentation about Face Aids work in Rwanda/Kirehe and it takes not more than 20 minutes. To help the participants understanding more what Face Aids and Partners In Health are doing in Rwanda, helped by my friend Fils Jean Luc, I made a 15 minutes documentary movie that contains testimonies from members who worked on the pins making project, a home visit done by Partners In Health staff. Dr Henry, the PIH/RWANDA Medical Director, arrived in the middle of the presentation). I’m not sure if I did everything the way I was supposed to, am waiting to hear comments.

After the screening, the audience applauded and apparently, the documentary is interesting and meaningful, I say to myself, thank God, this was not a waste of time. They are interested in getting a copy of the documentary and I explained that once I get back to Kigali, I will send them as many copies as possible, after all, they deserve, with this admirable work they are doing for my fellow Rwandese.

It’s very amazing to see these young students, full of passion and courage to raise money and help people, for most of them they have not yet seen a far country like Rwanda. If we could have more and more people like them, many problems will be resolved. I feel proud of Face Aids and its all chapters. Thanks to Austin chapter for organizing the conference. To all the participants, keep the good spirit and don’t get tired.

From left to right: Sheri Fink, MD, PhD; Dave Ryan, FACE AIDS Executive Director; Dr. Henry Epino, Medical Director, PIH Rwanda; Annie Kalt, FACE AIDS Managing Director; Emmanuel Ahishakiye, PIH Rwanda Training and Translation Team

 You can also check out PIH’s article about the FACE AIDS conference here

…to see PIH featured on 60 Minutes! Join a CBS correspondent’s journey to Haiti’s Central Plateau. Watch interviews and action footage that tell a remarkable story, and learn how destitute communities in Haiti have led a coordinated attack on disease and poverty that has become a model for the world, including here in Rwanda. Inshuti Mu Buzima, PIH’s partner organization here in Rwanda is not only using the community-based comprehensive healthcare model pioneered in Haiti, but the nation-wide scale up of the PIH model here is being overseen by a Haitian doctor who got his chops on Haiti’s Central Plateau. 

Paul Farmer always says that Haiti has been his best teacher (which with an BA from Duke and an MD/PhD from Harvard is saying something!) so get some friends together this Sunday and tune in. 

60 Minutes airs at 7:00 EDT/PDT on CBS. Click here to find your local CBS channel. The segment will also be available online at www.60Minutes.com after May 4.

 The Boston Globe recently did a profile of Paul Farmer’s work here in Rwanda. Though I realize that most of you are already quite familiar with the PIH program in Rwanda, I think the article gives a good introduction/a bit of backstory that perhaps you’re not familiar with.

Here’s an excerpt about PIH’s arrival at Rwinkwavu in 2005:

The “hospital” consisted of derelict buildings that had been used by a Belgian mining company decades earlier, then as military barracks during the genocide in which 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. Bullet holes pocked the walls, which were also scarred with hate messages left by the killers: “Those we don’t kill, AIDS will get.”

There were no beds, no patients, no staff, no medical equipment. “It was abandoned, dirty and scary,” Farmer says. There were 200,000 people in the district and not a single doctor.

It was the perfect place for Farmer.

And here is a bit of the description abotu Rwinkwavu today:

But the close-up view from the Toyota pickup that Farmer is driving on a recent weekday is not so pretty. Everywhere there are mud huts with dirt floors and no electricity, water or toilets. Straight-backed women carry huge cans of water on their heads, while stooped men push bicycles overloaded with stacks of wood or bunches of bananas.

Everywhere, there are children; Rwanda, the size of Maryland, is Africa’s most densely populated country. Big children hold small children; small children hold toddlers. Babies are bound to their mothers’ backs with colorful cloth, even as they bend over in fields.

The bumpy secondary road ends at Rwinkwavu Hospital, and the unbaked scenery instantly changes. Bauhinia trees bloom along with bignonia vines and creeping ficus, set among several low buildings.

In the middle of the hospital grounds is a fish pond, a Farmer trademark at all Partners clinics. He and his brother Jeff, a former professional wrestler, dug this pond themselves, wading into swamps for plants and fish. Farmer says it’s about providing dignity and something of beauty to the poor.

The 96-bed hospital includes a pediatrics and a malnutrition ward, operating room, women’s clinic, radiology, pharmacy, dental clinic, lab, and a lively center for children with HIV/AIDS.

This week a team of cardiac surgeons arrived from Boston in order to perform heart surgery on a few of PIH’s patients. Dr. Paul Farmer has written of the team’s work,

“It was awesome medically, as it always is when the pericardium is opened; it was awesome personally, as someone who has fought alongside many others to make sure that quality medical care be made available to the poorest; and it was awesome spiritually to see, on the exact anniversary of the 1994 genocide, that the power to heal continues to trump the power to maim, sicken, or kill.”

Read more of Dr. Farmer’s blog entry on the great work of Team Heart

**Written April, 6 (our website has been having technical problems this week, and so I’ve been unable to post)**

Today marks the 14th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan Genocide. Beginning on April 6, 1994 approximately 800,000 Rwandans were killed in 100 days.

Tomorrow a national week of mourning will begin here in Rwanda. Across the country, vigils and reconciliation workshops will be held. The bodies and bones of the victims of 1994, which were discovered over the last year will be put to rest in memorial sites.

Please take a few minutes today to think about all those who were lost.

One way of honoring the memory of those who were killed here in the Rwandan Genocide is by taking action today to help stopping the ongoing atrocities in Darfur. It is unfathomable to me that genocidal acts continue to this day in Sudan. To my Rwandan friends and colleagues who were promised “never again” in 1994, it is even more incomprehensible.

Please take a few minutes this week to help stop the genocide in Darfur:

Click here for listing of events in STAND’s Global Week for Darfur, which includes rallies, meetings and movie screenings across the country. You can also search for local events in your area here

Check out this op-ed by a South African academic. It’s a good introduction to some of the tough questions surrounding the effectiveness of foreign aid and the challenge of aid dependence in the Rwandan context.

Here’s a preview:

“Rwanda has emerged as a new focal point of the aid and development debate. Following a devastating history that culminated in genocide just 14 years ago, the Rwandan government has earned a reputation as one of the most effective and progressive governments in Africa, making it the darling of western aid agencies and a real-life development experiment for the many organisations and advisers seeking a silver-bullet solution to end poverty forever.

But in a country where aid is by far the largest foreign exchange earner, accounting for about a quarter of its $2,5bn economy, and the relevance of foreign agencies is measured by the size and shine of the newest 4×4 vehicles, Rwandans are earnestly striving to rid themselves of their dependency on the booming aid trade.”

Angelique, one of the PIH social workers, Alfred, the PIH microfinance project assistant, and I have just wrapped up visits with all 36 HIV associations which received microfinance loans from PIH last year. I’ve learned a great deal from talking with association members about their small business ventures and loan repayments.  Many of our meetings have taken place under trees and on hillsides, like the photo above in Kiyanzi. It amazes me what many of these associations have been able to accomplish with very little training and resources. The above associations were involved in a wide variety of activities from running a grinding mill to importing rice from Tanzania to soap-making.

Frederick (above), the secretary of the Twizerimana HIV Association in Gahara shows off the association’s pineapple farm, created through a loan they were given by PIH.

The soap-making workshop of the Ubuzimabushya HIV Association. Kirehe Hospital buys all of its soap, for bathrooms and laundry, from Ubuzimabushya.  Shema, the Kirehe Program Manager, tries to make sure that the hospital buys goods from local HIV associations whenever possible.

Matilda (above) and her husband have owned the bead shop in Nairobi for more than 10 years. They import the beads from Taiwan.

Check out this article from Monday’s LA Times about the work that PIH is doing here in Rwanda and in Lesotho:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-gatespih16dec16,1,6072197.story

I couldn’t agree more that what sets PIH apart is the comprehensive healthcare that they provide to communities and the belief that access to quality healthcare for the poor must go hand in hand with other social and economic rights like housing and education.

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REFUGE FOR THE SICK: Teboho Mahate is treated at a government clinic operated by Partners in Health in the remote mountain village of Ha Nohana, Lesotho. The boy was diagnosed with life-threatening meningitis, but recovered after treatment.

I just got back to Rwanda yesterday afternoon after a two-week trip to Zambia. I have a lot I want to share about my travels in Zambia. I was able to visit with all of the support groups that FACE AIDS worked with in 2005-6 as well as to look in on the on-going community counseling and HIV education projects that FACE AIDS maintains in Mwange Refugee Camp in partnership with FORGE.

But before I can get to that, I wanted to share a few moments from today’s World AIDS Day celebrations in Kirehe.

 Aloys, the President of the Forum of HIV Associations in Kirehe District, spoke to a crowd of several hundred at the hospital about living postitively with HIV.

 After giving the keynote speech for the celebration, the Vice-Mayor of Kirehe District did a condom demonstration for the crowd. Having strong community leaders who are willing to talk openly about HIV, sex and condoms, is such an important part of prevention efforts. I was very impressed that the Vice-Mayor chose to do the condom demonstration herself. After the demonstration, condoms were distributed.

 After a morning of speeches, songs and dancing, lunch was served.

 The ladies of Kirehe who helped facilitate the day’s events got me a matching dress for the celebration! It was a nice surprise to come back to, after a few weeks away from Kirehe, and a reminder of how welcoming and great the PIH staff here is.