When Janet Robertson stands before her New Hope Middle School science students, the class has her full attention. But there are quiet moments, after-hours or during down time, when her mind travels 8,000 miles away. It returns to the east-central African Republic of Rwanda, to other young faces, most of them only 3 to 7 years old. It wasn’t so long ago that Robertson was with those children who were going to school in structures with no electricity and latrines for restrooms. As an educator and missionary in Rwanda for almost five years, the alumna of New Hope High School and Mississippi University for Women came to know that country decimated by genocide in 1994. For two years — from 2016 to May 2018, when she returned to Mississippi — her efforts have focused on helping to build a Christian primary school in one of the most impoverished areas of the country, the eastern province, Ngedo sector. There, Hope School embraces the power of education to disrupt the cycle of poverty and strives to offer the area’s most vulnerable children a real opportunity to learn. An opportunity to improve life for themselves and, hopefully, eventually their homeland.
Challenges to building the new school were many, but before leaving Africa eight months ago, Robertson was able to see the doors open. It gladdens her heart.
“The children now have their own chairs, with backs, and they have tables without splinters. We have windows, a lot of light!” she said, extolling features taken for granted in American schools. In a place with even very little running water, every advancement merits gratitude.
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The vision for Hope School originated in Rwanda with Chantal Mubarure, who founded Hope Assistance Foundation. She and Robertson met when Robertson taught Mubarure’s children as a science specialist for two years at an international school in the capital city of Kigali. At the end of that two-year contract, Robertson returned to Columbus and “sold everything — dishes, furniture, truck” in order to return to Rwanda as a volunteer in education. She got firm support from her family and her church, Columbus Church of Christ.
Mubarure told The Dispatch via email that Hope School was established in the Ngedo sector because there was no existing formal preschool.
“These children come from the poorest families, and they cannot have access to this kind of education otherwise. By offering them free preschool education, they would be ready for primary school and become more competitive in the future. In addition, the chain of poverty would therefore be broken through education.”
Of Robertson, Mubarure said, “I cannot find words to explain (her) role. She has and still is a true partner in this ministry. Since the early implementation process, (she) has been volunteering as educational advisor by providing her high level of expertise in both classroom teaching and training to increase the quality of education … After going back to the U.S., we are still working together, and she is still doing (the) best to serve though she cannot be physically on (the) field.”
Robertson continues to act as educational advisor to the school with 115 Rwandan children in preschool through second-grade. They began their new school year earlier this month. Plans are to add a new grade each year as they advance, through sixth grade.
In blue shirts and black shorts, for boys, skirts for girls, they report daily to the new building where they receive porridge at breakfast and rice and beans at midday.
“We had to feed them something. We had kids fall out on the floor from hunger,” Robertson remarked.
Attendance guidelines are firm, and while parents do not pay for their child to go there, they are required to attend teacher conferences and be involved through a PTO-type organization.
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Don Cole is an elder at Columbus Church of Christ and serves on its missions committee. The church has partnered in developing the school.
“When Janet came home (from Rwanda), she did not leave her passion for Hope School behind,” said Cole, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and visiting professor of political science at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. “She was drawn to this area that was, by any measure, under-served. It really stole her heart, and the most amazing thing is that she and Chantal basically created something out of nothing in a very poor country.”
In addition to Robertson’s home church, other area churches, businesses, groups and individuals have shown a heart for Hope School.
“It’s interesting to see how building the school has united different denominations who have been a part of sponsoring the children and the school. The people of Columbus have been involved over the last several years, impacting a school on another continent. This community is probably one of the most giving I’ve seen. I can’t emphasize enough how much people here have been involved.”
That includes some New Hope Middle School students. As they learned more about what some parts of the world have to endure to receive an education, they wanted to help.
Within about a 10-day span before Christmas, some of Robertson’s sixth-grade science students and some of math teacher Heather Henry’s sixth- and seventh-grade students voluntarily contributed to help sponsor Hope School children.
“Some gave up their snack money; one boy gave his birthday money,” Robertson shared. “It has been a thing to behold to see how their understanding of other cultures has unfolded.”
Henry said, “I want my students to have compassion for other people in the world. I also want them to appreciate the value of the education they receive, because they don’t have to pay for it, and that’s not something that is a guaranteed right everywhere in the world.”
Enhancing knowledge of the wider world is beneficial, she continued.
“A lot of our students haven’t traveled beyond this area, so they don’t really understand the global impact they can potentially have.”
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Currently Robertson is focused on helping find sponsors for each child at Hope School. A donation of $100 per student will supplement school supplies, food and teacher training and salaries for a year.
Cole remarked, “A hundred dollars goes a whole lot further in Rwanda than it does here, and that’s what we’re doing now, trying to make sure these kids get sponsored.”
Sponsors are able to communicate with the child they are partnered with.
“It ties people to the school in a personal way,” Robertson said.
Donations for Hope Assistance Foundation may be mailed to Columbus Church of Christ, 2401 Seventh St. N., Columbus, 39705, with “Hope School Rwanda” on the memo line. Contributions may also be made online at hopeassistance.org.
Robertson is eager to share the story of Hope School.
“I’ll speak to anybody — Sunday School classes, civic groups,” said the advocate who hopes to visit Rwanda again this summer. She invites others to learn more at the Hope Assistance Foundation website, hopeassistance.org. A search for “Janet Robertson-Rwanda” links to a Facebook page devoted to the school. Email reaches her at [email protected].
A new little school on a dusty, dirt road in Rwanda has become “a beautiful bridge” between the vast continent of Africa and a small community in Mississippi, Robertson said. A bridge with potential to impact a life, a family, a village, a generation. “It’s really amazing,” she said, “what can be done.”
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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