Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
January 31, 2008 at 15:42
filed under travel
Today I am off to Rwanda. It will be my first visit on the African continent, and as per the title of my post, the only continent besides Antartica which I have not previously visited. I have been looking forward to this experience for a long time and I am pretty certain that you can only hope to prepare yourself for the experience – which I’ve done as best as I can.
The inspiration for my trip is my girlfriend who has been awarded with the ‘Seeing the World through New Eyes’ fellowship, given every year by the Jack Webster Foundation to young journalist to allow them an opportunity to do some reporting from foreign countries. She will first be visiting Mozambique before joining me in Rwanda. Besides visiting the land of the thousand hills and its various sites, I will be doing some volunteer work in Rwanda with Just Equipping, a small Canadian NGO:
Just. Equipping is committed to educating\training\equipping prison chaplains and workers in the area of Restorative Justice. The ‘Just.’ in the name refers to ‘Justice’ but it also conveys that ‘equipping’ is ‘just’ and primarily what we wish to do.
The not-for-profit organization is lead by Dr. Pierre Allard, who has previously been honored by Volunteers of America and who has a Canadian Correctional Service prize named after him, amongst several recognitions he has received, and focuses on Restorative Justice training. Dr. Pierre Allard is my uncle and it will be thrilling to have the chance to witness the difficult yet very inspiring work he, his wife Judy and the rest of the team will be doing in Kigali. Just Equipping will be doing work in Burundi and the DR of Congo as well, if conditions allow.
I hope my next two nights, which will be spent on planes, will allow me to land rested in Nairobi, where I will be transferring onto my final flight into Kigali. Of course the unrest affecting Kenya this past month makes me a bit nervous but from what I’ve been told from a UN contact on the ground there, the airport is still running smoothly. I will post as much as I can from Rwanda but photos will need to wait for my return.
Comments are closed.
Helene Allard
I wish you the best trip ever at all point of view and I look forward to be reading you …..Have a very rich trip
Yan Tremblay
Yo Emanuel!!
Merci pour ton support moral !!
Je suis heureux de constater que tu regardes mes nièseries sur le blog!!
Quel beau projet que vous avez toi et ta douce!!!
Je vous souhaites que du bonheur dans cette prochaine mission!!
Soyez prudent!!
yan
Embrasse Mary xx
PAIX