Interview with Nicholas Denson, April 4, 2023

Interview Summary

Denson served as maternal and child health volunteer in Rwanda from 2018-2020; he was evacuated from his post, with four months to go, due to the Covid pandemic. His pre-service training was held in Rwamagana where he learned about nutrition, growth delays and growth monitoring techniques in a health center. He studied the local language, Kinyarwanda, a Bantu language. Denson was posted in a village along a river in the Northern Province, near Nyuamugali, where he lived in an apartment within a family compound. His work there entailed accompanying a community health worker to near-by kitchen villages to measure the growth of the children, to ensure their nutrition, to identify at-risk issues in the kids, especially developmental delays. As a part of his work, he trained mothers by presenting health and nutritional facts to them, and by teaching them ways to save money to afford food for their kids. Denson also taught them basic animal husbandry techniques, particularly inoculations and care for the animals. As a secondary project, he taught high school girls English and leadership skills, pre-schoolers songs and games in English, and private school students self-awareness practices. While visiting other volunteers, Denson also learned about the deaf culture in Rwanda, learning sign language in the process of that. His accomplishments include the personal connections that he made with Rwandans, the role that colonialism played in the 1994 genocide, the power struggles among the tribes in the country. In the process, Denson gained a new perspective on his own biases and capabilities, changing his own behavior and attitudes as a result.

Interview Keyword

Rwanda Maternal and Child Health Evacuated Covid Rwamagana Nutrition Growth monitoring Kinyarwanda Bantu Nyuamugali Kitchen villages Developmental delays Animal husbandry Leadership skills Self-awareness Deaf culture Personal connections Colonialism Power struggles

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