Leaders including the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC), Dusengimana Emmanuel, the Board Chairman of Corps Africa/Rwanda, Robert Bafakulera, and Country Director of Corps Africa, Agasaro Eustochie Sezibera, among other partners, attended the ceremony.
Corps Africa recruits university graduates and trains them before deploying them to rural areas to work with residents on different development projects, such as building kitchen gardens and fertilizing fields.
After two months of volunteer activities, they team up with residents to identify projects that can solve the society’s problems and pitch them to partners for funding. Recently pitched projects include the construction of playgrounds, storage for crops in Huye District, agriculture of vegetables in Nyamagabe, making good use of stones in Musanze District, among others.
These projects were presented to partners, including Rotari Club, BK Foundation, MINALOC, Crystal Connect Foundation, and others, who appreciated them and requested CorpsAfrica/Rwanda to liaise with them to negotiate funding.
According to the Country Director of CorpsAfrica Rwanda, Agasaro Estochie Sezibera, the projects are entrenched in the government’s programs, such as donation of livestock, fighting malnutrition, enhancing subscriptions for community-based health insurance, and planting trees, among others.
Currently, volunteers operate in 48 villages from eight districts, including Nyamagabe, Huye, Gisagara, Ngororero, Bugesera, Gicumbi, Rulindo, and Musanze.
The success of volunteers has prompted CorpsAfrica to consider introducing these activities across the country.
The fourth cohort of volunteers consisted of 48 from Rwanda and four from foreign countries where the organization has branches, including Morocco, Malawi, and Senegal. Since CorpsAfrica began activities in Rwanda in August 2018, it has worked with volunteers in four phases.
The Permanent Secretary in MINALOC, Dusengimana Samuel, thanked CorpsAfrica for initiatives to put citizens at the center, noting that they want to work with the organization to increase the number of young people with constructive ideas.
The Chairman of the Board, Robert Bafakulera, urged university graduates to use the knowledge acquired through this program to accelerate national development.
Corps Africa, in collaboration with Musange sector in Nyamagabe, is implementing a project dubbed ‘Umurima wanjye Initiative’ that will see 20,000 kitchen gardens built in the area.
More projects completed in the same period of time include the construction of 14 water kiosks, 14 Early Childhood Development Centers, a TVET school, and a sewing cooperative was established. The youth volunteers also supported citizens to embrace advanced farming of vegetables on four hectares.
Additionally, there was the establishment of 3 Karate clubs as a way to deal with mental health and enhance socialization.
Other completed activities include training on technology, electricity, literacy programs for elders, while citizens saved over Rwf21 million.
Over 307 children were helped to get rid of malnutrition, 142b children were returned to school, while citizens in areas of interventions increased subscriptions for Mutuelle de Santé to 99.3% from 73%.
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