Rwanda trip overview

Hey Guys,

So Dunc and I leave on a 4-week trip to Uganda and Rwanda (Tanzania is, unfortunately, no longer on the agenda) on Friday.

We are still working on our itinerary, but, to give you all a rough idea, here is what we have in mind:

We will spend about 5 days in Uganda upon arrival. These days will be divided into stays in Kampala and the Northern city of Gulu. In Kampala, we will be hooking up with some interesting projects and organizations. And, in Gulu, we are going to connect with an amazing group of youths called the Youth Coalition for Peace (YCFP).

As soon as a friend of OA, Erin Hunt, told us about YCFP, we were immediately pumped to check them out and to find a way to work with them in the future.

Here are some of Erin’s words:

YCFP is made up of about 120 volunteers who are our age (18-29) in six different communities. The YCFP is committed to peace and reconciliation. They use recreation based peacebuilding to support the reintegration of child soldiers and other ex-combatants into their communities, to promote non-violent conflict resolution at all levels of society from domestic disputes to national and international problems and to have fun.

As you can tell, this is a fantastic and worthy initiative and right up OA’s alley.

After those 5 days, we will make our way down to Rwanda for 2.5 weeks. Our time will be spent in many different parts of the country, with a focus in and around Kigali, Butare, Bugesera, and the Lake Kivu district.

We are very excited about what lies ahead for this trip and for OA. We have been reaching out to many different people in and from Rwanda. One of these is a Rwandan, currently studying Economics at UVic, named Martin Ntiyamira. He has been very helpful and has put us in contact with some great people in Rwanda. Thanks Martin!

We will post more information this week on what we plan to do in Rwanda before we leave and will be posting a ton of media content while we are on the ground (blogs posts, pics, twitter updates and Podcasts).

Keep on keepin’ and until the next one,

Gav