by TOLU OLASOJI
On the last Saturday of each month, everyone stops what they’re doing and works together to improve their communities. It’s called Umuganda.
Jean Luc remembers how, when he was very young, his parents would leave their house in Kimihurura, a neighborhood of Kigali, once a month in a good mood. He didn’t know what they were smiling about.
“I would always eavesdrop on my parents whenever they came [back] from it,” he says. “It always seemed like something that brightened their Saturdays.”
Now 21 years old, it brightens Luc’s Saturdays, too.
Luc, along with just about every able-bodied Rwandan aged 18 to 65, participates in the monthly activity known as “Umuganda,” a Kinyarwanda word that means “coming together in common purpose.” On the last Saturday of every month, from 8 to 11 a.m., Rwandans across the country gather together to partake in community improvement projects. In Luc’s neighborhood, this has meant trimming back bushes that attract malaria-spreading mosquitoes, and making sure roads are clear of trash and debris. “It not only ensured that we have a clean environment,” he says, “but also had a long-run positive effect on our health and physical wellbeing. And you know what they say, a healthy nation leads to a wealthy nation.”
According to Luc, these monthly gatherings have helped his community recover from a long, devastating period of genocide, making it clean, innovative, loving and self-reliant. Across the country, in ways big and small, the tradition of Umuganda has unfolded in similar fashion, helping Rwanda to piece itself back together and recover from ruin.
Umuganda has existed in Rwanda for centuries as a cultural emphasis on communal problem solving. At times, however, it has been leveraged to beat people down rather than uplift them. In the 1970s, Umuganda was used as a ritual of forced labor as Rwandans were required to work without pay at the behest of their community leader twice a week. Later, in 1994, the concept was exploited to devastating effect as ethnic Hutu elites mobilized their supporters to kill minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a violent perversion of Umuganda.
Reasons to be Cheerful for more