Four Months in Kigali...Time to Focus on Work

February 20, 2010

Last Monday marked four months since I left New York, and I realized I haven’t shared much about my work so far at IJM.  Part of that is because I have to get approval from HQ regarding what aspects of IJM’s work I share before posting (and I’ve been lazy) but most of it is that it took a few months before I had adjusted enough to life in Kigali to be able to give my full attention to work.

My position as a Legal Fellow in IJM’s Rwanda Office means I am part of the legal team consisting of mostly national Rwandese lawyers who represent clients in land rights and child sexual violence cases.  I have gotten familiarized with the casework, meeting with the individual attorneys to discuss case strategy and resolve legal issues.  I have accompanied a few of the lawyers to the field and to court appearances and Abunzi hearings (Abunzi is a mediation panel consisting of community volunteers where disputes are heard before seeking resolution by a court).  Rwanda is a civil law jurisdiction, meaning that there is no requirement for a judge to follow any precedent set forth by another judge or higher instance court.  Rather, Rwandese lawyers look to various codified laws to ascertain what a judge will hopefully follow.  Most of the civil codes are written in French and then translated into Kinyarwanda, although recently codified laws have been drafted in English, such as the Law on the Protection and Rights of Children of 2004 and the Gender Based Violence Law of 2008.

In addition to informal training and strategizing with the Rwandese lawyers, I have been heavily involved in project planning for the future of the IJM Rwanda Office.  The Office has only been doing casework since 2008 and its current project will conclude at the end of 2010.  The current project focuses primarily on land rights cases such as property grabbing and resolving succession issues for vulnerable widows and children.  The Rwanda Office additionally has a small Child Sexual Violence Pilot Project, which also ends in 2010, and is exploring the possibility of expanding this project to take on more targeted cases in higher volume.  To that end, I have met with various NGOs in Kigali and other parts of Rwanda with access to vulnerable children to ascertain what types of cases or vulnerable children that have limited access to justice.  These meetings have been fruitful and I have been able to provide a lot of guidance and support for the new Project Proposal.

I have also really been blessed by the friendships developing among the IJM national staff.  I have been invited to a few colleagues’ homes where I have gotten to know each of them on a more personal level.  Rwandan culture is a very private one where deep friendship takes a while to form and is based on trust and observation over time.  Now that I am in month four, I am slowly opening up to my colleagues and them in return.  The Rwandese are such lovely people and previous perceptions and worldviews have been challenged in several respects – namely dating and marriage, faith in action, time and wealth.  Thanks to modern technology such as email and Facebook, I hope to be able to continue communication with many of my new friends even after I return to the States.

Work has been the most rewarding part of my experience so far, except for the relationships I have formed with my colleagues, and I have already been able to check off a few boxes and answer a few questions about my career moving forward.  These were big reasons also for coming to Rwanda and working for IJM, as I have previously only worked at a private law firm doing patent litigation.  I am very thankful to have had this opportunity to use my law degree in a different way, particularly doing not for profit legal work, overseas and for a faith-based organization.  As wonderful as this experience has been for me in this regard, I can definitely see I am much more suited for work in the US!  J