Umuganda is community work done in all
parts of the country on the last Saturday of every month, where people in same
area meet together from 8:00am to 12:00pm to do different activities such as
cleaning their roads, supporting poor people in repairing their old houses, making
bricks for constructing schools etc. And after doing a certain activity they
all sit together and talk about different issues that are happening in their
area if they are bad they talk about how to solve them and if it’s something
good they also be thankful for it. It also helps people to know each other
because many times you find that people are very busy in their businesses so
this is a good opportunity to know each other and welcome new members in your
area. During that time everything is
closed Hospitals, clinics and some pharmacies. The law says that every person
who is above 18 years is supposed to contribute though some young people
neglect it but it’s a must for every family/house to at least have one representative,
if they find out that there is a family which didn’t have someone to represent
them there is some amount of money they charge them as a fine.
This is helping the country so much because
now many problems are solved by the citizens so government is not putting in
money for solving those problems. And it also makes citizens to feel like they
are participating in country development which is a good thing.
So on Saturday 25th October 2014
as ICS team HUYE we also went to Umuganda in GISAGARA District, KIBIRIZI sector,
MUYIRA Cell in ZIHARE Village. It is said to be the poorest village in this
District. That day it was not planned for Umuganda only because it was also a
day of presenting the great work different NGOs are doing there to help people
to fight against poverty through building them water tanks, teaching them how
to take food which is nutritious. So on this day we met there different
representatives of those NGOs, the Mayor of Gisagara District, some members of parliament
and Mr. Francois KANIMBA the Minister of Commerce and Industries who was a Honorable
speaker of that day. As many people were doing different activities there like
making trenches for water, kitchen gardens, etc according to their groups for
us as ICS team we contributed in making a kitchen garden. That kitchen garden
we made was for one of the families there. After making it we planted there
different types of vegetables which are cabbages, greens, onions and carrots.
After that we all met at a field nearby and
had a meeting together with all people who attended the Umuganda and had
different stories of how people in that village are improving their lives of
living where they are now using clean water because they have got support of
water tanks from the help of Tearfund through AEE, and they are also eating
nutritious food because they have got some trainings of how to prepare a full
meal. After that we had encouraging words from the mayor of the district and
from the Minister of Commerce and Industries of Rwanda who was the speaker of
that day.
After the meeting we were invited to have
lunch with the leaders and other partners in a district guest house.
In short we enjoyed all the work we did
that day because after two weeks we went back to visit that family and saw that
the kitchen garden we made is really giving hope of giving a big harvest in
future. And the family told us that it will help them a lot because in few
months they will be eating their own vegetables so there will be no need of
going in the market to buy them. So it showed us that we really did a great job
and we thank God he gave us strength that day for that job.
We forgot last week to upload a pineapple
adventure, but this week’s pineapple adventure was Noah tried pineapple covered
in rice and a piece of meat, his reaction didn’t seem too satisfied haha.
Stay
cool my brothers and sisters
Derrick
(on behalf of the team)
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