On the Bus with Daschle

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle talks about the growth of Rwanda’s tourism industry and its inspirational impact on the country’s economy, culture, and citizens’ quality of life.

Cindy Sings Praise for Rwandan Women

While on the bus traveling between locations in Rwanda, Cindy McCain reflects on the trip so far, noting the themes of forgiveness and the Rwandan women who are moving the country forward.

A Look Into Rwanda’s Past

July 19, 2008
11 am

The first stop this morning was the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center. John Podesta and I laid a wreath at the mass grave site of the genocide victims. I had the opportunity to do this last year when I was in Rwanda with Samaritan’s Purse, Scott Hughett, and my wife, Karyn (who is at home now recuperating from back surgery). The site and the service in which we participated are a moving, memorial remembrance of the million people who died over those 100 days of genocide. (It is so hard to comprehend). Each member of our delegation laid a single rose alongside the wreath, one by one, as we each paid our respects. Beneath that wreath lay a mass grave, one of many at the site, containing the partial remains of over 5,000 individuals from the Kigali region.

It was remarkable that the memorial was designed to tell the story a mere four years after the genocide occurred, (more…)

Frist and Daschle Walking, Talking Rwanda

ONE Vote ‘08 Co-Chairs and former senate leaders Bill Frist and Tom Daschle talk about what they’ve seen and learned so far and what message they want to pass along when they return to the States later this week.

Huckabee at Church in Rwanda

Senators Daschle and Frist, Mike Huckabee, John Podesta, John Kasich, Susan McCue, David Lane and Cindy McCain attended the Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Rwanda yesterday during their ongoing trip to see life-saving U.S. aid at work.

Below, a short video clip from Mike Huckabee talking about the role of faith in the fight against global poverty.

David on Day 2

John Podesta: “one of the most powerful experiences I have had”

Today was an emotional moment for me and for the rest of our delegation. There is so much pain in Rwanda’s past, and out of that pain has come a society that is committed to reconciliation. They are trying to move forward together. This was one of the most powerful experiences I have had in any place. Out of the pain has come great hope. The people are trying to build a new country, where people live together in peace.

It’s wonderful to see this. And it is bringing new hope for the future.

Rwanda has a 2020 plan, to have growth be widespread and successful by the year 2020. We’ve seen a spirit of entrepreneurship today. We saw women sorting coffee and farmers with their specialty crops. In talking with them, there is a lot of spirit and optimism. Grow new opportunities. Put kids in school. Move forward as one country.

The people of America ought to be proud of what’s happened here and our support for the people who have come so far so fast. We’ve helped through USAID with the development of new industry and new entrepreneurs. PEPFAR is making a major difference in fighting AIDS and HIV. There’s still a lot to do, and we can help.

-John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress

Frist: What is ONE?

July 19 2008 8 a.m. Saturday

First for the questions that I am most frequently asked. What is ONE? And why are Tom Daschle and Bill Frist leading this delegation to Rwanda?

ONE is a grassroots organization with about 2 million members in the U.S whose purpose is to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease around the world. I’ve been working with ONE since Bono and I went to Uganda in 2001. ONE pushes for better policies and, where needed, more resources to support effective, anti-poverty programs. We lobby and put pressure on political leaders in our country to do more, but to do that well we know we must listen to those who are living in the developing world trying to transform their societies for the better. And there is no more appropriate place in the world to do that than Rwanda, a country that went through the most horrendous atrocities imaginable just 14 years ago, with a million people killed in genocide over a period of 100 days. Today is creating a future of hope and opportunity that will lift the country out of poverty and decimate preventable disease. They demonstrate good governance and investments in education and health, and they create an environment conducive to business and trade.

We have tremendous admiration for those people working on the ground to improve the lives of the world’s poorest, and it is our responsibility and obligation to spread their success stories and share their lessons learned.

As an anti-poverty organization, ONE often advocates for development assistance, HIV/AIDS policy, and clean water, but we also know that the lasting solution to poverty is economic growth, trade, investment.

Rwanda has laid out an incredibly ambitious vision for where it hopes to take the economy by 2020 in its Vision 2020; it’s an inspiring framework. Vision 2020 is Rwanda’s goal/plan to be a middle income country by the year 2020. They’ve said they want to be the “Singapore of Africa.”

My own goal of putting together this trip for our ONE delegation is to visually and graphically make the link of health and education to trade and investment. Although not always apparent (especially to the politicians in Washington!), these are connected spheres of activity. In a healthy country, they build upon and reinforce each other. Healthy, educated people produce more developed economies. Business and trade produce the tax revenue that a government can invest in public education and public health. But too often our development initiatives treat these as separate.

We begin today as ONE; the setting, challenges, and some solutions will be explored by our motley family of ONE.

Sen. Bill Frist, M.D.

Summing Up Day 1

On the first day of the ONE trip to Rwanda, the team spent some powerful moments touring the Kigali Genocide Memorial and listening to the testimonials of both a perpetrator and a survivor of the genocide. We also visited a coffee washing station where local farmers bring the beans and area workers clean and sort them. Many of these beans end up in our coffee back home. The coffee industry is growing fast, and other specialty crops are not far behind.

On our second day, we’ll look at another key industry - tourism. We’ll hear from Rwandans about their experiences in the tourism industry, what that has meant for the economy here in the effort to fight poverty, and what the future may hold.

-Tom Gavin

[Photo: Kigali Rwanda 19 July 2008: Congressman John Kasich and Karen Kasich in discussion with women working at the USAID Coffee Farm washing station project. ]

Flying to Join the ONE Delegation

July 18, 2008

We were up at 6 am and off to the airport. Things took just a bit longer to clear customs for our flight to Kigali, Rwanda, so we were delayed us just a bit. We left Mozambique after a full four and a half days, with many great memories. We are much more educated as to the challenges of the people of Mozambique, and we appreciate them teaching us about how we can be most useful. They don’t want fish; they want the opportunity to fish. And we can help make the setting more conducive to fishing – by help with clean water, roads, training community health workers (who can teach others and treat others), and capacity building.

It’s a long flight to Rwanda; check the map. The dot between Nampula, Mozambique, to the dot of Kigali, Rwanda, is 8 hours – as the single engine plane with a 30 knot headwind flies! “Are we there yet?” I kept hearing from the seats behind me. I have piloted single engine planes a lot in Africa – Uganda, Sudan, and Kenya. But never in Mozambique and Rwanda so I even had to fly a little bit today.

Mauro de Lorenzo, my “plus one” scholar/aide who assists me with the MCC, had kindly gotten a couple of rolls for each of us for our breakfast, but that was it for meals until after we landed. On board, the pilots had brought some sausage and Ritz crackers that we all split – I was looking for some cheese but we had run out on the last leg. Cokes (minus Carville this time) and water kept us hydrated, but not too much because there is no bathroom on the plane. There’s nothing better than getting a little hypoxic after a few hours of flying at 13,500 feet. There was a little turbulence for the final two hours, but overall, it was a beautiful day flying over a majestic countryside with the vivid colors enhanced by the African sunlight.

We did make one fuel stop in Tanzania for 30 minutes, and we stretched our legs. Then back up to Kigali. We finally arrived, and we were met at the plane by the ONE Campaign staffers, one from the U.S. and one from Germany. One of the Deputy Ministers (who is also a physician – yeah!!) met us at the airport to welcome us and off we went to the hotel. When I was last in Rwanda, the hotel was under different ownership, but it has now been upgraded and it’s very comfortable. We went to the lounge looking for food at 5:30pm. I still had cheese on my mind, but unfortunately the bar only had peanuts.

Mauro and I were met by Tyler Denton from ONE, and we discussed the next five days of the trip. It looked perfectly planned. We will begin with the genocide history tomorrow.

I had a private meeting that I will tell you about in a few days that ran for an hour, and then I went to dinner with Cindy McCain. The rest of the group will arrive from the States after dinner. Cindy is blogging as well, so I will let her tell her story, (more…)