The Bishop of the Diocese of Ruhengeri in Rwanda, Vincent Harolimana, the chair director of the UMH Headquarters in Rwanda Chair, Mariano Pérez Arroyo, in addition to various Rwandan authorities, have inaugurated the lunchroom and kitchen at the Nemba schools, a project driven by the UMH Headquarters in Rwanda Chair and the Vice Rectorate for International Relations at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH). UMH Rector, Jesús Pastor Ciurana, and Vice Rector for International Relations, Vicente Micol, participated in this ceremony via video conference from the Elche Campus.

With the construction of this lunchroom and kitchen, the UMH has now finished the remodeling projects that began at the Nemba schools a few years back. The schools where the UMH has built the lunchroom and kitchen are managed by the Diocese of Ruhengeri and are located near the facilities that the UMH has in Rwanda.

The Nemba schools lunchroom has a capacity for 600 children. Starting today, boys and girls of all ages and socioeconomic levels will now eat together there in a space that has been equipped with all the necessary furniture and a large kitchen. Furthermore, to promote the disappearance of disease and the acquisition of good habits, the university installed a system of washrooms at the lunchroom entrance, which will allow all school children to wash their hands before beginning their meals.

This infrastructure is part of a plan of action implemented by the Rwanda Ministry of Education. Their plan intends for all school children in Rwanda’s school network to eat at their own schools. As of today, the Nemba kitchen and lunchroom will permit that boy and girl students at this school, regardless of their age or socioeconomic level, will receive a meal there every day.

In addition to the construction of this facility, lunchroom grants are also being issued, a product of conversations that the UMH maintained with the relevant authorities and that materialized through an agreement to subsidize meals with assistance by parent associations and contributions from the district and this university.

Results from UMH cooperation efforts in Rwanda are visible in the construction of schools, the reconstruction of the Nemba Hospital subsequent to the war there in 1994, and in the creation of a teaching structure, which has allowed calling this project the fifth campus of the UMH. The university is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with this latest action, the inauguration of the lunchroom and kitchen at the Nemba schools.