The Village Class Initiative was the first thing Imboni Academy ever did, and in many ways it is still the thing we measure ourselves against.
The idea was simple. Students in our community needed help with the subjects that decide so much of what comes later: Math, English and Science. So we gave them time, in person, with people who cared whether they understood. We were not trying to be a school. We were trying to be the person who sits down next to you and says, let's look at this together.
What we learned surprised us a little. We arrived thinking we were bringing content. What students needed most, again and again, was something else: someone who expected them to succeed and said so out loud. A student who believes a subject is not for them will not learn it, no matter how clear the explanation. A student who is told, calmly and repeatedly, that they can do it will often surprise everyone, including themselves.
We also learned the limits of the model. A class that meets in one place, for one group, at one time, reaches only the students who happen to live close enough and be free at the right hour. Everyone else, and there were always everyone elses, stayed outside the door. The better the program was, the more painful that became.
Eventually our own lives changed. Most of us went on to university, some of us far from Rwanda, and the group that had run the classes could no longer run them. We stopped. We did not want to pretend otherwise.
But we never stopped believing in what the classes were for. The Village Class Initiative is the reason we now think about education the way we do: help should not depend on where you live, and information should not belong to the lucky. That belief is what we are building on today, with free online lessons and mentors who can reach students wherever they are.
To everyone who ever sat in one of those classes, thank you for teaching us as much as we taught you.