Santa Clara Engineering Students Team Up with Nyange Leaders to Test a Tile-Press

Dorosella and the women of the cooperative were excited to work with Engineers Without Borders students to assemble and test a new tile-press, which will reduce the labor needed to shape roofing tiles. One quiet woman, Mediatrice, took the wrench and said, “I can do that.”

Digging and mixing clay, shaping and baking the tiles, and carrying them to the site where the community is building new homes, is very demanding work. The tile-press will make one step easier. Students are now completing design on a clay mixing machine as a next step in this partnership.  One of the students related his experience this way. “I was truly impressed by the desire for self-sufficiency with the community of Nyange. They by no means view us as Santa Claus. I think this will be hugely important as we shift to a long term project.”

Nyange is one of the poorest communities in Rwanda.  Community organizing has transformed this group of poor women farmers into a strong community, healing divisions among themselves as they realize that their greatest resource is each other.  Though this transformation was facilitated by Pr. John, it is the community that has taken ownership of the change. Together they have learned advocacy skills, recently securing a plot of land from the government which will facilitate their construction of more.