Sange, January 2018 – In Sange, in the Ruzizi plain, teachers, principals and young club leaders have just spent four days learning to monitor public services and projects with DevelopmentCheck. The training of trainers in Community Integrity Building, which ended on 5 January, was organised under Students Acting for Honesty, Integrity and Equality (SHINE), a project implemented by CERC with Integrity Action and funded by NORAD and Sida.
SHINE brings integrity education and community monitoring into secondary schools. On 8 December 2017, CERC launched Integrity Clubs in 20 secondary schools of Uvira territory, in Uvira, Kiliba, Sange, Luberizi, Bwegera and Luvungi. To run them, CERC organised two four-day trainings of trainers:
- 20–23 December 2017 in the city of Uvira;
- 2–5 January 2018 in Sange, for the schools of the Ruzizi plain.
For each school, the principal, two teachers and three club leaders took part – 20 school principals, 40 teachers and 60 Integrity Club leaders in all. Using Integrity Action's Community Integrity Building method, they learned how to identify a public service or project to monitor, collect evidence, report problems and work with officials until they are fixed. They practised with DevelopmentCheck, Integrity Action's monitoring tool.
The trainers will now coach the students of their clubs. Trained in anti-corruption, citizenship, transparency and accountability, inclusion and gender equality and leadership, club members will monitor their school's services – class sizes, toilets, water, library, teachers' attendance, budgets and spending – and infrastructure projects in their communities, then look for solutions with school managers, parents and providers in joint working group meetings.
The approach reflects a conviction that CERC's founder shared in October 2017. “I have found that the answers to corruption lie in the participation of young people who live in the environment plagued by corruption,” wrote Heri Bitamala.
The goals for the first year of SHINE are ambitious. In the coming weeks, the trainers will support 300 young monitors aged 15 to 19. The project aims for girls to make up half of club members and at least 30% of club leaders, and for the 20 clubs to reach 2,000 young people.
Make a donation to help CERC train more teachers and club leaders, or become a supporter to bring Integrity Clubs to more schools in the DRC.
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