08.08.2023

How do we learn together?

Partnership Representatives Rev. Emmanuel Hakizimana, Rev. Pasteur Karangwa Prince, Youth delegates Noella Ishimwe and Kwizera Musabyimana Reny and Rev. Eberhard Lagoda together with UEM staff John Wesley Kabango and Frauke Bürgers. Photo by: Susanne Seiler, UEM

What does Global Learning mean in an international partnership?

In June, partnership activists from the EPR* in Rubengera and the EKiR* on the Nahe and Glan visited the United Evangelical Mission in Wuppertal to answer this question. Rev. Karangwa Prince, Chairman of the Presbytery of Rubengera, led the delegation from Rubengera.

Frauke Bürgers, Education Coordinator at UEM, discussed the principles of Global Learning in Ecumenical Perspective (GLEP) with the activists from Germany and Rwanda. A central point is that cooperation between people from different continents is not based on thinking in terms of "us and them", but on the common ground of an inclusive, but at the same time context-sensitive "us".

During various flood disasters in Rwanda and Germany, the church district that was not affected helped the one that was affected - in both directions. In this way, both the people on the Nahe and Glan rivers and those in Rubengera are sometimes givers and sometimes takers. The flight tickets for the youth delegates during this exchange were paid for by the EPR Rubengera without international support, because the focus on youth work was particularly important to the Rwandan church district: this too is a step in the spirit of GLEP.

For the future, the two church districts are planning to hold joint services via Zoom and to establish school partnerships. We wish them all the best for their future journey together.

*EPR = Église Presbyterienne du Rwanda (Presbyterian Church in Rwanda)

*EKiR = Evangelische Kirche im Rheinland (Evangelical Church in the Rhineland)