My name is Pauline, a researcher who is passionate about global health and development issues. To be specific, I am very much interested in sexual and reproductive health issues of young people. Currently evaluating a project called DREAMS (Determined Resilient Empowered AIDS- free Mentored Safe) which aims to reduce HIV incidences among adolescent girls and young women by providing them with a core package of evidence based interventions.

I chose to take part in RwandOpp foundation as I have a great desire to work in projects that promote community driven solutions through empowerment initiatives which is in line with their vision-and mine too. In addition, I had worked with RwandOpp team previously (early 2015) on their Green saves project which was in partnership with Tearfund, an organisation that I was working for at the time. The project empowered refugees in Rwanda (from Tanzania) by guiding them on how to improve their nutrition and socio-economic status. This entailed conducting sessions on nutrition, savings as well as building kitchen gardens.

Since then, I have been in contact with the RwandOpp team and have been planning on visiting them so as to support their amazing work.  And in July , I got an opportunity to visit them and learn about their current projects (I4Opportunities and planting DREAMS) as well as contribute to their work by assisting in teaching and sharing ideas on how to improve the projects.  I was hosted by RwandOpp team at their home in Musanze and I can assure you that I had one of the best times in my life; I know right, it’s such a cliché but it’s true. The house is very big, clean and beautiful with an African twist to it.  I had my own en suite room which was very clean and the team was very hospitable.

Thing I loved most about working with RwandOpp team is that when it came to work, we were all hands on deck like for real! And after work we made sure that we took the time to relax by visiting the town, sightseeing and of course have a social gathering and chat about stuff outside work.