Settling into African life
Posted: 20 June 2018
Sunday – Our Father
Today the team joined Juves at Christian Life Assembly, an international church with English speaking services. They had a visiting pastor from London (and his wife is a lawyer there!) who shared reflections from the Lord's Prayer for fathers on Father's Day. The church gardens were top notch.
In the afternoon, Juves from Lawyers of Hope gave a presentation on the work of LOH; a group of beneficiaries also shared their testimonies with the team. This was incredibly powerful, and we'll blog about this later on once we've had time to process all we heard.
Monday – Time to train
The purpose of our trip is to provide legal training. This has been arranged by Lawyers of Hope (our partners) in conjunction with the Rwandan Bar Association. It was incredibly exciting to be part of this new joint venture. The team split into two groups:
(1) Young Lawyers – Risk management, data protection and confidentiality. Run by Aaron, Therese and Hannah. (15 young lawyers attended)
(2) Criminal Stream – Comparative studies, doctrine of binding precedent and examination-in-chief. Run by Mark, Helen, Naomi and Jen. (25 experienced lawyers attended)
As we're not even at the halfway point, it might be premature to evaluate the success of this initiative. But initial reports suggest lawyers were encouraged, built up in their skills and have committed to coming back tomorrow!
This evening, the President of the Rwandan Bar Association very generously hosted the LCF and LOH teams for dinner. Not only did this break up the chicken/chips diet, we had the chance to invest in relationships and share genuine fellowship. It was a wonderful way to end the day.
