A little info about IJM and what I'm doing

I realise I haven't yet actually put much information about what I'm doing in Rwanda. This is partly sheer incompetence on my part, and partly due to the fact I have to be careful about publishing information about IJM and its work publicly (lawyer-client confidentiality). But, here goes...

I can't really think of anything to write about IJM generally that's any more informative than the website, so go take a look at www.ijm.org. The IJM team here in Rwanda are great, and have been really welcoming. The director, Dieter, is from South Africa. I'm staying with him and his family while I'm here, and they've been incredibly kind to me and really helped me settle in. There's also Tineke (from the Netherlands) and Chantal, Jean-Pierre, Gabriel, Benoni and Marc (all Rwandese). I've got lots to do already - the office is still very new and so there's plenty of work to go around! We're in the process of hiring Rwandan lawyers, accountants and paralegals at the moment.

We're also setting up the land rights programme. Rwanda is an incredibly crowded place (though you don't get that impression in Kigali, which is surprisingly quiet). There are almost 9 million people crammed into an area half the size of Scotland (or about the size of Maryland) and the population is growing at some 3% a year, so land availability is under huge pressure. The state of the law and its implementation are messy, which leads to countless disputes and a lot of tension and injustice. The government is embarking on a very ambitious plan of land reform and registration, however, and we're going to be helping with that in Gasabo District, which is just outside Kigali. The programme has various elements - advocacy, training and education, help with will-writing - but the aim is essentially to make sure the process of land reform works smoothly and doesn't disadvantage those already vulnerable in Rwandan society (e.g. widows, orphans, the disabled, genocide survivors etc.)

So that's what I'm working on.