What is it like to be an expert mentor in Rwanda?

Hem/News/What is it like to be an expert mentor in Rwanda?

This interview with Tomas Jennebo was originally held in Swedish. Please find the original version here

Being an expert mentor for Fojo means offering your expertise on a voluntary basis. What is it like to volunteer for Fojo in Rwanda?
I think it’s great. There’s something about the atmosphere that strikes a special chord with me. My DNA almost seems to say, you’re “at home”, every time I come here.

For three weeks you will teach at Fojo’s Rwanda Media Programme. What are you teaching?
For the first two weeks I teach how to make a podcast to journalism students from four different Rwandan universities. After that I teach a similar course to a group of professional journalists.

At the moment, the students are working on merging the first days’ lectures and exercises into the main task; creating a ten-minute pilot for a podcast that will can be turned into at least five more episodes. The students have been divided into groups and each group has been tasked with forming an editorial team and discussing a podcast idea. They then pitch the ideas to the class before it’s time to record a 10-minute pilot. The topics they’ve chosen range from being a new student to sex and relationships to racism in football. Or, in short, life.

This week we’re staying in a boarding house in Rwamagana, 20 students, the local coordinator Assoumani and me. It’s great to live like this. It’s quite familiar and everyone is there from morning ’till night. There is not much else there to distract us. And when we live together we can stay on schedule and do everything we need to do. Not least because breakfast, lunch and dinner are served at set times that are not unnecessarily interrupted. Speaking of which, it’s almost time for coffee. Coffee, cake and chicken. Not as bad of a combination as it sounds!

 

Read more on the Program and what it means to be a volunteer here.