Camp Be and Glow round two with an entrepreneur twist

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In my last blog post I wrote about campBe and some of the things that went on during that camp. This year myregion did another two camps at my school. After last year we wantedto focus on the theme of entrepreneurship. With most volunteers inmy region successfully starting GLOW and BE clubs we needed to helpstudents in making those clubs sustainable.
One common reoccurring problem mostvolunteers have faced when teaching with their students and evendealing with their schools and the education system is the a lack ofcreativity. To put more precisely; a lack of an ability to criticallythink and problem solve. Most teachers teach by giving students notesthen leaving class. The students copy the notes into their notebooksand then they are expected to memorize those notes. Many of theteachers will collect the students notebooks at the end of the termand will mark them for completeness and neatness. These methods donot produce students who can critically think, problem solve orbrainstorm.
So this year when planing out what wewould do for our GLOW and BE camp we decided to focus on creativityand entrepreneurship. Most of the activities we did there based onthis theme. The advantages of having such a theme for our camp isthat it will help them be more successful after they finish school. Asecond advantage is it will also help make our GLOW and BE camps moresustainable by giving students ideas and ways to raise funds for theclubs.
Activities we did during our GLOW andBE camp ranged from basket weaving; where we had a cooperative ofwomen come and show students how to make baskets to making pizza (mypersonal favorite) to making water prof cell phone cases for peoplesphones. The students really had fun doing these activities and evenour host school was fascinated by the pizza making operations. Forour second camp, the school even selected some of their cooks toobserve how to make pizza so that they could make if for specialoccasions in the future. So, not only where we educating our studentsbut also the school staff.
One problem we did have that I noticed,especially with the basket weaving, is how some of the Rwandan malefacilitators refused to participate. When I asked them why they saidthat basket weaving was for women. I countered with do not you haveto hands and a brain? It took some convincing but by the end of thesession those facilitators where weaving there own baskets. It was alittle victory in the battle of gender roles which is very prominentin Rwandan culture.
There is still a lot of work to be donewith teaching students creative thinking and teaching students thatboth boys and girls can creativity think to solve problems. Thesecamps are just the first step and I hope that many of the clubs atour schools can take what they learned at these camps and run withit. My departure from Rwanda is only a couple months away so I canthelp wonder about what the future will bring to the land of athousand hills but my vision for this country is a country offreedom, creativity and prosperity that surpasses even what has beenaccomplished in the western world. Is this possible? Yes and Ibelieve GLOW and BE camps are helping to plant the seeds for makingthis vision a reality. 
By Joel Atwood