Africa-Press – Rwanda. The staff of cement manufacturer Cimerwa participated in Umuganda exercise which resumed on Saturday, March 26 in Gahanga sector, Kicukiro district. After two years of suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the exercise was resumed by citizens with the participation of Cimerwa staff as they were celebrating the International Masons’ week.
During the ongoing Masons’ week celebration, the local cement manufacturer will also facilitate the construction of several houses for vulnerable communities in the city of Kigali, as part of its corporate social responsibility.
That will be done in partnership with the Syndicate of Construction and Masonry enterprises in Rwanda (STECOMA). Jean Yves Bayingana, Cimerwa’s Trade and Marketing Manager told The New Times they had come to empower citizens to participate in Umuganda after resumption of the monthly community service.
“We have come to empower local citizens to participate in this exercise as it is resuming, and keep them in the spirit that we have to overcome the pandemic, and let life come back to normal,” he commented.
Umuganda resumed after two years, but it was supposed to start last month however it was postponed by different activities planned in the previous weekends like Tour du Rwanda among others, which led to the exercise taking place in other provinces apart from Kigali.
Umuganda is a community exercise conducted every last Saturday of the month where residents come together and undertake cleaning activities in their neighbourhoods and find time to talk about critical issues affecting their day to day lives.
Some of the sites visited by The New Times on Saturday include Gahanga sector in Karembure cell. Residents were excited to see the exercise resuming, which is considered as an opportunity to clean their neighbourhood and discuss critical issues that affect the society.
In Saturday’s community work, the Karembure community with the help of Cimerwa staff built hostels for teachers at Karembure model school. The Vice Mayor of City of Kigali in charge of Infrastructure and Urban Planning, Merard Mpwabwanamaguru urged residents to keep up with the initiative of cleaning their neighborhood.
“As the community exercise resumes, we need to keep up the initiative and consider it as our own, not waiting for the government officials to always call on us, but rather make it our own,” he told the community. In other areas of the city like Kanombe, the exercise focused on rehabilitating the drainage pathways that were destroyed by the heavy rains.
“Our drainage pathways had been damaged, because we had spent a lot of time without rehabilitating them, so water would flow into our houses and destroy them or block some roads in the neighbourhood,” said Theogene Karasanyi, a resident of Karama cell in Kanombe sector.
The Executive Secretary of Kanombe sector Idriss Nkurunziza also echoed the same views, stating that residents were excited for the resumption of this home-grown solution.
“On behalf of the citizens, first of all, we are very happy that we have overcome the Covid-19 pandemic and we are currently holding physical meetings, but you can also observe that the citizens look excited and don’t want to end the exercise very soon,” he echoed.
Umuganda was introduced in Rwanda in 2007 and suspended upon the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. It had resumed in other provinces apart from Kigali city.
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