Umuganda (community day) is one of my favorite things in Rwanda and I have done my best to participate since I got back home over 3 years ago. My faith in our national rebuilding is strengthened each time I go to Umuganda because we actually do clean and discuss community issues along with those other initiatives from GoR. I’ve learned so much from these and look forward to them each month.

The highlight to date is the completion of our Umudugudu office. There’s a saying in Luganda – akugoba yakulaga ekubo – translation (my best one🙈 – he who chases you shows you the way). You see, at the beginning of last year, we were kicked out of the tiny room that we called our office for years. The owner went to the extent of taking down the room altogether so that we don’t even meet there. This forced us to think and plan for a location where we’d meet as a community after Umuganda. For a while we’d clean and go to various locations for meetings. We were able to score a tiny strip of land to build our own space. So we went to work – preparing the location ourselves for building as we raised money each month. Eventually we broke ground and slowly but surely built our way to the finish. Out of the nearly a hundred homes, about half contributed to make it happen – and make it happen we did.

March Umuganda we launched in a big way. I was actually against the big launch as I thought it would be a waste of money and didn’t see the point since we’d built, it was our responsibility, why a party?! Our leaders had invited our cell, sector and district leaders as well as neighboring communities. On the morning of Umuganda, we did the usual cleaning – put final touches for the event. After which the event started – with the Vice Mayor of Kicukiro district as our guest of honor and a great turnout from our neighbors. Drinks & food provided etc, good event. What excited me most was the Mayor congratulating us on being the first ones in the district to build our own office. As a result, the district donated a computer, chairs and offered to add a meeting room for our meetings. We were overjoyed! 🎉🎉🎉🎉

It is true that give and it will come back to you. We built a space that would giving us a meeting place that we’d be proud of and also generate income that would go to helping the neediest of our community as well as run other initiatives. In return we got an even bigger space will help us earn more – I can only imagine the possibilities.
This project was a labor of love and goes to show that we are truly the solutions to our problems and shouldn’t wait for Government to do everything for us.

At the end of last year Ugandan tweeps coined the #tusabagovumenyietyuMbe hashtag on twitter that provided some comic relief asking their government to do various things, and yes government must provide citizens with basic services. However, we should never tire of asking what we can do and going out there and doing it, whether government comes through or not. It is my hope that governments support communities achieve goals like in our case.

Proud of the work done and look forward to conquering more with my community and continuing to set an example in our district and hopefully beyond. Hope that you too can participate in the building of your community as nation building hinges on us working together to achieve sustainable development.

Cheers 🍸🍸🍸