In Their Own Words: Parent Perspectives
“Wellspring’s training empowered us to take the future of our community into our own hands.”
We’re excited to share with you the unique perspective of parents in Rwandan school communities in which Wellspring is privileged to work. Our Asset-Based Community Development training focuses on mobilizing parents and empowering them to bring about change through their own skills and talents. Our program places an emphasis on a parent’s role and responsibility in their child’s education. As a result, students are being supported at home and parents are coming together to improve schools, which has drastically improved the overall well-being of the community. In their own words, parents shared with us how Wellspring’s training is impacting their local school communities:
“Before Wellspring’s training, we thought that the education of our children was the role of the government and the school leadership, not our role as parents. After training we recognized that we have a big role to play in the education of our children.”
“The training that Wellspring has offered to us has helped us to gain skills and a new perspective on how to address issues of our children’s learning. It also helped us to identify our roles and responsibilities. Instead of parents and teachers clashing, conflicting, we realized that we need to work together to build strong unity.”
“Before, we saw boys as more valuable than girls. This was an outdated and wrong way of thinking. Now, we see them as equal. Wellspring’s training helped us to understand this.”
“I understand now that investing time in children is the most important thing we can do as their parents. Giving support to them at school and at home, so they can be empowered to achieve their dreams.”
“Because of these trainings and parents working together with school leaders, students have increased their performance. It has also increased the cleanliness of our children. Today, they are in uniforms. Another strong area was the accountability on the side of finances. Now we have built trust and parents help to plan and see how the money is managed. We want to thank God for Wellspring. It is God who gave us Wellspring. Thank you so much.”
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD)
What is the process of ABCD?
“All the trainings that Wellspring gave us, all the care they showed us—We are ready to pass this on to the rest of our community.”
Asset-Based Community Development focuses on empowering people to help themselves. Instead of focusing on what is lacking, this approach emphasizes the community’s assets and strengths. Once the assets of the community are identified, they can be connected to areas of need and mobilized, which results in empowered citizens and improved community life.
Wellspring trains connectors (parents elected by the Parent-Teacher Committee who are trusted to connect the community to their assets) and Parent-Teacher Committee leaders. Once these trainings have been completed, Wellspring supports these parents to pass along their knowledge to other community members through peer learning. Using this method, workshops are delivered to parents in the community by their leaders and peers. This emphasizes that change is coming from within the community instead of from outside.
What issues are focused on in ABCD training?
“Wellspring has invested into bridging gaps in our community and raising awareness of parents about the importance of being involved in student learning. We will never take this for granted. We want to see this growing more and more.”
At Wellspring, we help parents to recognize that they play a significant role in the education of their children. Once this understanding takes root, our Community Involvement team works with these parents to realize how their assets and involvement can strengthen the quality of education at their local school. Through a variety of workshops put together by our trainers and local community leaders, parents receive training in the following areas:
- Asset mapping
- The importance of parent-school relationships
- Healthy families and communities
- A parent’s role in their child’s education
- Positive behaviour management
- The roles and responsibilities of school committees
- Gender and girls’ education
Results
How does ABCD training impact education?
“I thank Wellspring for training us and teaching us how to participate in our children’s education. They empowered us to create projects to help the school community.”
Asset-Based Community Development helps school communities achieve sustainability. When parents are invested in their children’s education, they use their own assets to continuously improve the school based on its current needs. With Wellspring’s training, parents have started the following initiatives:
- Installed hand-washing stations to improve school hygiene
- Planted a bean garden to provide a balanced diet for the school feeding program
- Created saving initiatives to teach students the value of money
- Donated to raise school fees for less-advantaged students
- Built new classroom blocks to deal with overcrowding
- Contributed to the purchase of water tanks and filtration systems to provide access to clean water at schools
- Sensitized other parents in the community to the importance of education, resulting in the return of children who had previously dropped out of school to help their families
Thank you for the role you play in supporting school communities in Rwanda. We look forward to sharing more updates with you throughout the year. For now, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Sarah Harrington: sarah@thewellspringfoundation.org