The inauguration ceremony took place last week in Nyagatare and was attended by both MTN Rwanda and local government officials.
Groupe Scholaire Ndama is a newly constructed school that was launched in July 2017. It was constructed by Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) under ‘Army Week’, an yearly programme where Rwandan army conducts free activities that contribute to the development and well-being of the society.
The school had only six classrooms accommodating over 900 students.
MTN Rwanda’s Chief Sales and Distribution Officer, Annie Tabula told IGIHE that the company always conducts different activities to support welfare of Rwandan community.
“This is part of our yearly programme where employees help the community we operate from, last year our agents from this province told us that Rwanda’s army constructed the school, but had few classrooms, and we as MTN decided to provide our contribution so that children would not travel long distances to or from school,” she said.
She added that MTN has many activities that support well-being of the people and back government programmes in different sectors like health and women empowerment among others.
Evariste Kayumba, a parent whose child studies at the school welcomed the classrooms saying that their children are relieved from going to study away.
“We are very happy to have this school and classrooms close to us because our children would have to travel long distances going to study in other schools and sometimes they decide to drop out,” he said.
Eastern Province Governor, Fred Mufulukye affirmed that having the classes will help students concentrate in their studies.
“We thank Army and MTN which constructed these classrooms in this region, children used to travel long miles to school and this discouraged them. The first remarkable step is to have a school and children are no longer taken to their families living close to other schools, they will no longer travel long distances, we hope that they will raise the quality of education,” he said.
Mufulukye pledged to construct more classrooms in the school so as to solve congestion problem.
Currently, the school has over 900 students with primary school and one year of ‘twelve years basic education’.
As the ceremony to launch the classrooms was coincided with the celebration of ‘International Women Day’, MTN Rwanda supported a forum of Eastern Province women with Rwf6,5 million to use in development projects.
Construction activities for inaugurated classrooms started in June 2017 under MTN’s ‘21 Days of y’ello care’ promotion programme which focused on education and ICT.
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