Gathering together partners from the Burundi Ministry of Education, the Compagnia delle Opere (CdO), and around one hundred attendees, AVSI’s team took a day to look back on the latest fruits of its 11-year history of educational and food security projects in Burundi.

The occasion was the July 11 presentation of results from a project to strengthen the living conditions of people in the rural areas of Matongo, Muruta, Kabarore and Businga districts through educational activities and teacher trainings, co-financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The event speakers, all experts with hands-on experience, painted a clear picture of the ideals and real outcomes at play throughout the project, with Aloys Micomibi, advisor of the Burundi Direction Générale des Bureaux Pédagogiques as moderator, and Burundi-based teacher trainers Christine Bantenyakandi and Oscar Mushengezi, CdO Educational Branch’s pedagogical consultant Franco Delpini, and AVSI Burundi’s Monica Treu and Marco Ziliotto as speakers.

What they described was a training project which reached around 900 teachers in the area, in a unique chance for AVSI to work directly with the country’s Ministry of Education. Using the CdO Educational Branch as a point of reference, AVSI led trainings for two groups of curriculum advisors from the Bureax Pedagogiques of the MOE, who then trained the teachers with the new framework proposed by AVSI, which is based on the educational approach in Luigi Giussani’s book, “The Risk of Education" (also see the Training Manual).

Bantenyakandi and Mushengezi outlined the results of the collaboration and pointed out strengths and weaknesses in the partnership, pointing out the large steps taken forward together toward the priorities set by the Government of Burundi. One invaluable positive result was that teachers began to have a more holistic approach to education, described by the motto “educate by teaching.” Expanding from a narrow focus on teaching children particular skills, teachers begin to see their exciting role in helping students develop as mature persons in front of all aspects of life.

This was confirmed by the witness from a teacher present:

“Being 56 years old, with a long teaching experience, I thought I had a good knowledge of concepts such as authority and tradition…. But the way these themes have been developed during the training sessions led me to a new awareness that allowed me to change, not only at school but at home, too.”

Read more:

AVSI in Burundi

June 2011 Ecuador Center Models Risk of Education

Pictures from the event: