Travis Stahl and Eddy Norikazu (Rwanda, Agohozo-Shalom Youth Village, ASYV)
The ASYV is a village created as a systematic solution to combat the orphan crisis in Rwanda
At the ASYV, the student consultants focused primarily on farm management and visitor management. The Farm Information System (FIS) was developed in response to the sporadic expense reporting and ineffective tracking of food from the farm that was being used or sold, making the ASYV unable to analyze product profitability and seasonal trends. The FIS is a high-functioning and user-friendly excel spreadsheet model that assists with consistent and precise record keeping that includes projection values and profitability.
With visitor management, visitors coming to ASYV unannounced and in varying group sizes raised security concerns. The consultants designed a Visitor Management System (VMS) using Salesforce and creating/installing the CommCare app to ultimately improve village security through enhanced collection of visitor information. Both the VIS and FIS were installed and used by the end of the 10 weeks.
While Travis and Eddy accomplished their project work over the 10-week period, they valued the experience with the children in the village more than anything and gained a lot from their stay there. Eddy was inspired by the ASYV. Despite the children at the village being there for unfortunate reasons, he felt there was still much structure, warmth, friendliness, love, family and respect. Travis said that leaving the Village was the most challenging part of his experience. Not only did he get to create substantial and true lasting power with his project, but he also was able to build relationships with the students there, and became used to the way of life there, including “waking up to a fresh cup of Rwandan coffee before walking down to the farm to buy eggs for my omelet." He is happy he participated in TCinGC and says the experience validated he decision to come back to school.