Launched yesterday in Musanze district and operating under Mobile Employment Service, the project has in its employ solar-powered buses equipped with laptops and printers, allowing youth, especially those in rural areas, to search for jobs on RDB’s online job portal, kora.rw as well as receive career guidance from professionals.
Some of the youth in Musanze say that they will no longer have to go to distant places for news related to job opportunities.
One of the youth, Kuradusenge Claudine, said, “People like us from the countryside used to sit, waiting for a relative or friend to link us to jobs. Now, this bus with its technology will tackle our ease our access to information.”
Nshimiyimana Syldie said that this will also decrease the cost it used to take them to find job news.
“We used to walk a long distance going to the town for such services, costing us transportation fees and the services themselves; now they are bringing the services near us for free. What is being brought to us is an opportunity out of unemployment,” said Nshimiyimana Syldie.
Agatha Gilbert, who heads the project at RDB, said that the program aims at helping the youth easily access job the information.
“This service has a goal of making it easy for the youth to know where there are jobs and helping the employer in need of employees to get them. This bus has all the necessary devices to facilitate all of that, one way to fight unemployment.”
There are two such buses in service that will ply the whole country, in rural areas, with expectations to help 200,000 people find employment in one year. So far, 5% of those who use the service have got jobs.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda, unemployed Rwandans are 16.7%. with the youth, from age 16 to 30, forming 21%.
Aged 17, he lives in Gatanga Village, Karenge Cell, Rwimbogo Sector in Rusizi District. He, since childhood, has always been curious to know the functioning of tools and wanted to make them.
As a child, he used to see a sparrowhawk picking up chicks, and that inspired his idea of a machine that broods and hatches eggs.
He says, “In my childhood, when I kept chicken, they hatched eggs and sparrowhawks would take them away. I then got an idea of a machine that hatches the eggs and keeps the chicks. At first, I failed to make the machine, but I finally found some few materials and started putting them together to make the machine.”
Niyigena adds that for him to make the machine, he made internet research which enabled him to get an idea of how to make the tool that increases and decreases temperature.
“I used the internet, and copied how it is made. The tool I made increases or decreases the temperature as you wish. What this machine does is brood eggs, hatches them, and keeps them for two weeks until they are tangible,” he says.
Niyigena says that among the challenges he faced was a lack of internet that slowed down his research and implementation of his ideas.
Today, he also makes flat-irons for ironing clothes. Showing one of his flat boxes he says; “This is a flat-iron made from wood, a piece of metal, clay, and wires.”
His materials are sometimes bought or collected from a place where they prepare metals. “Upon knowing the name of a material that I need, I buy it.
He got the skills while studying at Groupe Scolaire de Mushaka. He advises his fellow youth is to believe that nothing is impossible.
“While studying at Mushaka, I used to make research, sometimes on the weekend, or at night. We did not study this at school. It’s all about commitment. Don’t say it’s for white people. Instead, try it out and make it yourself,” he says.
He has sold two of the machines, each one at Rwf 100,00. He is taking sciences at a school in Nkombo Island, Rusizi District.
Casa Mbungo André was made head coach of the football club in August of 2017 and left in November of 2018 after spending three months without being paid the contract wages.
In October 2018, he wrote a letter to the management of Kiyovu Sports communicating that he would leave the team in thirty days if his payments were not affected.
On May 16, 2019, Casa reported the case to FERWAFA which ordered Kiyovu Sports to pay him Rwf 6,500,000.
On the 7th of July 2019, FERWAFA gave Kiyovu Sports sixty days to pay the former coach, failure of which a ban would be imposed on their transferring and registering of players.
Kiyovu Sports appealed against the order, but, on the 8th of November 2019, the appeal committee of FERWAFA rejected it.
On January 4, 2020, the representative of Casa demanded that FERWAFA enforce the ban, which was agreed by FERWAFA disciplinary committee on Saturday, January 18, 2020.
The ban comes at a time when Kiyovu Sports has entered into a four-year Rwf 132,000,000 contract with AZAM Bakhresa Group.
Kiyovu Sports is currently in the fifth position with 26 points in the national football league. It recently registered such new players as Habamahoro Vincent from AFC Leopards, Kenya, and the Cameroonian Mbazo ’o Nkoto Karim, registered before the ban was enforced.
Ntega Amatwi becomes the third song that TMC appears in without his partner Platini.
The song is released as rumors sweep around that the two members of the group are not on good terms each seems to be working alone, Platini too having released songs without TMC such as Motema, his collaboration with Nel Ngabo, as well as his upcoming feature with Safi Madiba Fata Amano.
Apart from those songs by Platini, he also recently was seen in a studio in Tanzania alongside Rayvanny, a trip which TMC was not aware of.
TMC says that he does not know what is behind the news of their separation. He says, “Dream Boys is something huge. It is not only about singing together. The group won’t collapse.”
“Apart from this song, even if they can be ten by him or me, it doesn’t mean that the group has fallen apart. Wherever I am or he is, we are the group. Whoever denies that we are still together, let him give us work and see if we won’t be there.”
He adds that lying that they are still working together while they are apart would be something bad to do to their fans who they rely on.
The video of the new song Ntega Amatwi was produced by Ma Riva while its sound was produced by Fazzo.
The dead woman’s neighbors say that she lived off sex trade. They also say that she had gone into the house with the man, for sex, so they suspect he is the one who killed her.
Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) has confirmed the death and say they have started an investigation and looking for the suspect who immediately went missing.
Umuhoza Marie Michelle, the spokesperson of RIB, says the investigations are underway.
“Yesterday, we started doing an investigation on the death of the woman, and we are looking for that suspect.”
She added that the woman’s body was taken to the police’s hospital for autopsy.
The TV has been testing signals for some time on Channel 121 of StarTimes, mainly featuring music. However, it also showed the East African Party that took place on January 1, 2020.
In a conversation with Kabanda, he confirmed that the television will be officially launched on January 17, 2020, at 5 p.m. at its headquarters in Gikondo, showing its first TV program.
The TV is currently only on StarTimes will be available on other broadcast satellite services. Its application is also available on Google Play.
Its mission is to develop Rwandan entertainment and the music industry and will be the sixteenth Rwandan local channel.
Weya Viatora, 23, has become a renowned national and international entertainer.
She was invited to the festival through the Rwanda Arts Initiative (RAI), a non-profit structure intended to contribute to the professionalization of the art industry in Rwanda.
The RAI founder Dorcy Rugamba told IGIHE that they invited Weya so as to help position her music to the international level.
He said, “We invited Weya so that she comes, polishes her skills, networks with professional artists, opens her eyes, and get more exposure. This is part of the Rwanda Arts Initiative’s projects where we take an artist and link them with other artists through such spaces as KVS. Théâtre Royal Flamand will enable her to meet great artists.”
He added that they wish to see such Rwandan music as Weya’s being sold via big retail chains like Fnac, enabling the musicians to live off their music.
RAI provides this support to such different artists as writers, singers, both stage and screen actors among others.
In her conversation with IGIHE, Weya said that she was pleased to have been chosen to perform at the festival.
She added, “We will meet other artists, learn from them, share experiences and see if we can generate something big.”
Weya will also produce her second album through such Belgian studios as Nicolas Lefèvre’s Sunny Side Inc, and Christian Dessart and Rachid Mir’s Bionix through their partnership with RAI.
She is also is set to collaborate with Gaël Faye who she met through the Rwandan book launch of his novel “Le Petit Pays”.
Born in Kigali on July 9, 1996, she discovered her musical talent at the age of four. She said, “Since childhood, I liked singing. As I grew up, I could sing when sad or happy. In fact, this is my calling. To me, nothing can replace singing because it is my life.”
She wrote her first song in her primary four but went into a recording studio at the end of her high school when she released her first song “Empty House”, a song that was played on Voice of America, and earned her an interview with CNN.
She has released such songs as “Intimba”, “Eyes Open Dreaming”, “Miracles”, “Uwo Ndiwe”, “Heritage”, and “Name is Woman”.
Among awards put to her name are 2014’s High School Idol and 2016’s “Youth Award”.
So far, she has released one album titled Fire Flame on which she worked with different producers including Khrisau, Danny Beats, Jay P, and Dr. Nganji.
She has collaborated with different prominent artists such as Mani Martin, Butera Knowless, Peace Jolis, Patrick Nyamitali, Carole Karemera, Samuel Kamanzi, and Michael Sengazi.
He said, “This time movies from the East African region will be invited, not as observers but to compete.”
This year, participating countries will include Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda.
To apply, one must show proof of ownership of a movie he is submitting for the awards. The movie must have been released in 2018 or 2019, for Rwandan movies. For international films, they must have been released in 2019.
This year’s activities will see a Rwandan movie being shown in different towns around the country, take different actors outside Kigali to meet their fans, an exhibition of Rwandan movies, and will take Rwandan movie producers on benchmark visits abroad.
Rwanda Movie Awards was launched in 2012. Submissions for this year’s awards start this Wednesday, January 15, 2020, and the awards will be given on March 7, 2020.
Babo, 18, is well known for such songs as “Ich Liebe Dich” featuring Urban Boyz, “Turn Up”, “Problem”, and the recently released “Number One”.
Her role models are the American-born Nigerian singer, songwriter, and record producer Davido and the Rwandan singer and songwriter King James.
“My role model in music in Africa is Davido while in Rwanda it is King James. This is because of the way their music soothes to me,” she says.
She says that she discovered her love for music when she was little. Back then, she used to sing while in her room. As she grew up, she says, she decided to make it her professional career as she pursued her studies.
One of her goals is to popularize Rwandan music internationally. She says, “My vision in music is to raise awareness of Rwandan music and develop my motherland. In five years, I want to see myself among the greatest musicians and to develop my country as a Rwandan woman.”
On the question of why there are few Rwandan women in the music industry, she says that women face a lot of challenges that discourage them.
She says; “Women face such problems as a producer asking them money before they work on a project, sometimes the song going unproduced for as long as a year, leaving them disheartened.”
One of the biggest dreams she has had since childhood is meeting President Kagame.
She says: “Meeting President Kagame would please me a lot, for I had that dream since when I was a little child. Also, I can tell him that he is a good and exemplary parent to the nation.”
Babo has been doing music for four years. She is of mixed race, her mother being Rwandan while her father is German.
Uwiduhaye Rigobert receives me at Agati Library, Muhoza Sector, Musanze District, a library which he co-founded. It is at twilight. I find him putting final touches to a commissioned portrait of a woman. His hands splashed with strands of paint, we place two stools in the garden that surrounds the library, sit and chat about his career in painting.
Aged 24, Uwiduhaye Rigobert is a tall and calm young man with a well-built body. His art falling between abstract and realism, he is a semi-abstract painter. Living near the Volcanoes National Park, the subject matter of most of his pieces is animals for reasons of conservationism.
On conservation, he says, he paints images that elicit love for the wild. “It is not to mean that I will go and tell the poacher to not kill animals. But, at least, if I paint a deer, in a colorful way, he will love it and won’t kill it again.”
Uwiduhaye has always been devoted to art. He says, in nursery school, when classes used to be mainly about drawing and singing, he found himself leaning on drawing than singing. He remembers always being eager to volunteer to draw for his primary school teachers whenever they needed to draw something on the blackboard.
His love for drawing surged during his Ordinary Level studies. While applying for an Advanced Level combination of studies, he was faced with a dilemma between going for the arts or moto vehicle mechanics, which was his other area of interest proven by the fact that most of his early drawings were of vehicles. He even dreamt of owning his own automotive industry.
He applied for both combinations, putting École d’Art De Nyundo first and Moto Vehicle Mechanics (MVM) second. Before he could know which one he had been offered, his interest in pursuing art studies dropped.
“I started thinking, ‘I am already used to drawing. It is no use going for something I already know. Why not go for motor vehicle mechanics?’” he says.
Despite his now disinterest in the arts, when the results were released, he had been offered to study at École d’Arts. He resisted and struggled to find a school of motor vehicle mechanics.
He moved to Kigali, at Rwanda Education Board, asking for a change of schools which request was declined. He eventually joined École d’Art De Nyundo. He went there, still feeling disappointed and uninterested, only to reach there and be blown away by what he found in the school.
At the school were paintings that he could not believe had been drawn by the students. He realized that his knowledge of art was wanting and the school had a lot to offer.
His born-again character made him befriend all students in the school who seemed to be the best at painting, including Giraneza Tony, Iradukunda Patient, Ishimwe Daddy, Rwema Sam, and Toussaint.
Those taught him a lot of styles he did not know, but the lack of flexibility in the schedule of the boarding school made him afraid that it could chip away at his artistic spirit.
That same academic year, he and his friend Mugisha Paul, another rising painter in Kigali, decided to opt out of the boarding. In the school’s history, it was the first time students would be allowed to study while staying out of school.
The principal at first had refused, but the two students insisted until when the principal said, “You will keep paying the same school fees as boarding students.”
They accepted.
“And, I will only accept it if each one’s parents accept that they will take risks of whichever problem might happen to you,” the principal added.
After uneasily convincing their parents that it would be for their own good, the two students finally opted out of the boarding.
At a place where they stayed, they could use the internet to access and learn from extra content than that they got in the class. They would download tutorials by a landscape painter called Kevin Hill from YouTube and learn from them.
While staying outside the school, people started to employ them so much that Uwiduhaye made enough money to pay his rent, meals and school fees for himself. That was still in his first academic year at the school!
In 2017, after completing high school, the two had a dream to make an arts center. They based themselves in Ruhengeri, working from Uwiduhaye’s home.
They started giving free artworks as gifts to people, especially tourists. Those tourists would go on to spread the word about their art among their friends, people who would later commission their work on good prices that allowed Uwiduhaye to buy enough equipment and other materials he needed for the trade.
He first learned what it is to do a solo exhibition in 2017. He then started planning on hosting his own. He went into discussions with hotels around Ruhengeri, most of which rejected him, causing him to give up.
In that same year, he reached out to Virunga Valley Academy (VVA), an American international school in Musanze that allowed him to exhibit during their annual festival. There, he sold all twelve paintings he took there and got five commissions for other paintings.
He credits Matt Miller, the director of the school, and his wife for helping him grow his communications skills and confidence.
In November 2018, his first solo exhibition was held at took Crema Coffee Shop, Musanze District, and he earned $1300 from it, a half of which he invested in the foundation of the Agati Library, an initiative of a group of six young adults who grew up and live in Musanze District, namely Karekezi R. Patience, Umuhuza Denyse, Munyabuhoro Prosper, Mukiza Aime, Isangwe Sabine, and Uwiduhaye.
With more than 3,500 books, the library has become a sanctuary for hundreds of kids.
His last solo exhibition took place again at the same place in January 2019 during which he met Kathy who asked for ten of his paintings to be exhibited in ‘Life in the Brush’, an exhibition which brings artists together in Kampala.
At some point, I ask him to show me one of his paintings of animals, and he quickly shows me seven pictures of different paintings. His paintings, colorful acrylics on canvas, are portraits of the animals’ faces. The paintings he shares with me show the animals as tender beings that invite friendliness and fun.
His art undeniably is conversational. One of the portraits of a giraffe, looks like a painting in which the painter had to first discuss with the muse different alternatives of her pose, a discussion which finally led to a masterpiece pose.
The giraffe is painted from a right-side view, and, with its mouth open, the giraffe looks happy and inviting the fun all his paintings invite.
In his calm voice, he says that apart from the individuals mentioned above, he receives no support from either the government or private sponsors.
He says, “Everything is on my own.”
Furthermore, he enthuses that art in Rwanda is gaining prominence.
“Nowadays, an ordinary man tells you that he bought red curtains and asks you which color he shall paint the walls, and that’s art. All people have gotten artistic minds. It is not like before when people would use things of completely different colors without trying to think how complementing colors can create beauty,” he says.
He currently lives off his painting business and plans to get his work positioned at a global stage and to found an art gallery to support exhibition of works by young artists.
![Barbara Teta [Babo], one of Rwandan emerging musicians who sings mainly in German language has such big dreams as taking Rwandan music to the world](https://en.igihe.com/IMG/jpg/babo_avuga_ko_ashaka_guteza_umuziki_imbere_ukarenga_urwego_uriho_uyu_munsi-88562.jpg)
