The Akilah Institute for Women

Mary Powell – Lead Instructor

We have all been gearing up for an exciting summer on campus, but didn’t realize that this summer would be a time for our students to begin to blossom outside of Akilah, too!

Last month, four of our students were offered positions at The Manor, a boutique hotel that has just opened in Kigali.

On her first day at work last week, Anita, one of our best students, was promoted from the Housekeeping department directly to Reception.

Anita is now the face of the Manor – an enormous responsibility and a source of pride for every member of our Akilah family. Anita spent last weekend using the skills she’s gaining here to welcome The Manor’s first guests.

Akilah staff are not the only ones watching Anita’s career bloom, however. In the last few days, Anita has inspired over ten other students to step out of their comfort zones and enter Kigali’s job market. Our Program Director, Monique, has written letters of recommendation to a variety of companies around the city. Some students have applied to work in Customer Service at a top telephone and internet provider, some have applied for training at Rwanda’s premier coffee shop, and some have sought to become Anita’s colleagues at The Manor.

As Akilah’s hospitality instructor, the last two weeks have given me a renewed pride in my students. In only half a year we have built a richly supportive environment in which students are learning new skills as they develop confidence and inspire each other to go out and create a place for themselves in the new Rwanda.

In March, students wrote poems about their dreams for the Dream Flag Project. Here is what Anita had to say. I think she is well on her way.

I am the Dreamer.
I dream so wide.
I dream I am a sunrise in the sky.
I dream I am a tall tree in the forest.
I dream I am a leader, somewhere, somehow.
This is all about my dreams.
I dream I’ll hold the hands of those who are weak.
I dream I am a peacemaker in my society.
I dream so big.
I dream I’ll be the moonlight in my nation.
I dream I’ll rise up like a new flower.
I dream so big.
I dream one day I will speak to the world.
I dream I’ll be one of the inheritants of the Kingdom of God.
I am the Dreamer.

Mary Powell – Lead Instructor

English class this week took students on a journey through ninety years of dreaming. The week culminated in the creation of colorful Dream Flags, a project started at the Agnes Irwin School in Philadelphia. Students first learned John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” watched Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. give his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, and memorized poems by Langston Hughes. Students saw how others visualize their ideal worlds and began to expand their own understanding of the capacity dreams have to transform the way we approach the future.

At the beginning of the unit, many students’ dreams centered on finding a good job – a worthy goal that remained at the tops of students’ lists throughout the week. The critical difference in their final projects was that students had begun to see how their dreams of prosperity are actually part of a much bigger vision for their communities, country, and world.

The sweetest moment of the week was after class on John Lennon Day when Fais, an earnest young mother of three, asked me why John Lennon would bother to write his song about peace and the end of conflict when he didn’t even face any of those problems in his own life. We talked about it for a few minutes until tears welled in her eyes and she said, “He must really believe in peace and wanted to send a message to killers and fighters.” Fais found that her own dreams of peace will never be futile as long as so many people around the world share that same vision.

During our weekly team-building Kanatapi exercise yesterday, another student, Anita, said, “Making a dream flag has made me realize that at Akilah I am already one step closer to realizing my goals.” Students have hoisted their flags on a rope up at the front of the classroom – a constant reminder to vigilantly follow their dreams.

Students hang their dream flags