Life Is Amazing: A Week of Progress in Rwanda

From graduates giving up part of their summer to help younger students, to a growing pig project and a school preparing to become an example for others across the district, Project Director David Mwambari has had plenty of reasons to feel optimistic this week.

“Life is amazing.”

Those were David Mwambari’s words after his latest visit to our project in Ntenyo, rural Rwanda, and behind them are three seemingly simple updates that together say something much bigger about what is being built here.

The first came when David made a surprise visit to the local primary school during the summer break. Most of the students are currently away from their classrooms, but a small group of children were spending additional time back at the school studying, catching up on their learning and working to improve their grades before the new term begins.

What David did not expect to find were five graduates, former students, there with them.

They had volunteered to come into school during their own summer break simply to help the children study. There was no payment and no incentive beyond wanting to see their fellow pupils do well.

For David, it was one of those small moments that captures what years of investment in education can begin to create.

“These kids don’t have to be here,” he reflected. “They’ve come because they want to help the others. What more can you ask for?”

Education is about far more than grades. A strong school can become a place where young people learn responsibility for one another, where teachers are supported, where expectations grow and where opportunity begins to feel possible. This philosophy sits at the heart of Not For Sale’s work in Rwanda, where education, teacher development and community support are being used to reduce the vulnerabilities that can leave young people exposed to trafficking and exploitation.

Seeing students voluntarily giving their own time to help classmates succeed is therefore something worth celebrating. It is also a small but powerful example of why education can be such an important part of preventing exploitation in communities where limited opportunity can increase vulnerability.

Growing Beyond the Classroom

Progress is also continuing a short walk away at the project’s pig farm.

One of the pigs has been pregnant and just yesterday gave birth to nine new piglets. Part of the latest funding provided by Not For Sale is therefore being used to expand the existing pig housing, giving the project the additional space it will now need for the new arrivals.

It may sound like a modest development, but this is exactly what long-term community building can look like. Sustainable local projects can generate resources, strengthen livelihoods and create greater economic resilience rather than relying on a single intervention or short-term donation.

The approach reflects the wider work already taking place through community-led enterprise in Rwanda, where Not For Sale has supported agricultural cooperatives, training and business development designed to help communities build sustainable sources of income for themselves.

And with the new residents now here, the building work has become rather more urgent.

A School Others Are Being Asked to Learn From

Perhaps the strongest indication of how far the school has come, however, is what will happen when students return in September.

Part of Not For Sale’s recent funding is being directed toward maintenance and renovation across the school, including repairing and repainting areas that have been affected by years of strong sun and weather.

The work is particularly timely because district leadership has asked school principals from surrounding communities to visit the school when the new term begins.

They are being invited to see what has been built here and to learn from the standards being developed across the school, from teaching and the quality of the learning environment to the way teachers are supported and sustained financially.

For a school that has benefited from years of collaboration between the local community, David’s team and Not For Sale, being asked to share those lessons with others is an important moment. The ambition has never simply been to improve one building or support one group of students. It is to develop approaches that work, strengthen communities over time and, wherever possible, allow that progress to travel further.

That is what makes this week’s updates so encouraging.

A handful of students helping their classmates during the holidays. A pig farm preparing for its next generation. A school repainting its walls before welcoming educators from across the district.

None of these moments alone tells the whole story. Together, they show a community building on what has already been achieved and increasingly taking that progress forward itself.

Sometimes, as David put it, life is amazing.