Our emphasis will be service learning, defined as the acquisition of practical skills essential to the realization of the project, as well as a firm grounding in the scientific principles upon which it is based. We believe that our collective efforts can transform the lives of people across Rwanda by encouraging a spirit of cooperative enterprise while addressing basic issues of poverty and malnutrition.
We are not proposing a ready-made solution that will collapse when the foreign ‘experts’ go home.
On the contrary, the project is designed to engage local people at every level, with the goal of instilling confidence that mastering the required skills will empower them to improve their quality of life through their own ongoing efforts.
Fr Emmanuel Rutangusa
Founder and Project Director, helpRWANDA
MTh, Boston College
Fr Emmanuel received his Master’s in Theology from Boston College and is a co-founder of Catholic University in Rwanda, responsible for the design and construction of its facilities, the installation of the initial faculty and staff, and oversight of its fiscal management until 2014.
He was born and grew up in a rural Rwandan village and attended the seminary in Kenya. After his ordination he returned to Rwanda and was assigned the trying task of leading reconciliation efforts in numerous parishes in the aftermath of the genocide. His work in numerous Rwandan parishes provided him with additional insight into the needs and challenges faced by its citizens. He was chosen by the Archdiocese of Butare to study abroad, to gain additional theological training and understanding of service-learning practices.
Dr Jameson Chace
Professor, Chair, Faculty Director of Community Engaged Learning,
McAuley Scholar, Faculty Fellow Salve Regina University
In addition to being a professor of biology, Dr. Chace also chairs the interdisciplinary majors in the Department of Cultural, Environmental, and Global Studies. His research is based on creating opportunities for undergraduates to gain experiences in field ecology and environmental sciences.
He has been awarded two National Science Foundation RI-EPSCoR grants related to marine response to climate change and the collaborative Northeast Water Regional Network (Rhode Island, Delaware and Vermont). Dr. Chace also maintains an active research program in hydroponics and in avian ecology. He is the author of 25 peer-reviewed papers and has given nine papers at national conferences in the past 10 years.
Dr. Chace spends a significant amount of time in the field, locally in the forests and wetlands of Aquidneck Island studying bird behavior, along the coastline of Narragansett Bay studying sea ducks and osprey, measuring water quality in ponds, streams and the coastal environment, and on field trips to New Hampshire, Cape Cod and Belize.
Roger Shaw
Managing Director, Lakeside Fish Farm
Kigali, Rwanda
Roger completed his BSc in Aquaculture at Auburn University, Alabama and worked as a fish farmer in the USA, UK and Israel. Between 1988 and 2010, he took an extended career break in the IT sector winding up at a Silicon Valley Surgical Robotics company. Towards the end of that stint, he conceived Lakeside Fish Farm and on one nail-biting day, he resigned from his job and embarked upon a new chapter with his wife, Faith. Roger and Faith sold their home in San Jose, California and cashed out their life savings. They shipped everything to Rwanda and built a working farm on the scenic shores of Mirayi Lake where they now live with their family.
