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In a tweet, the Office of the President, Village Urugwiro announced that Kagame met the team before the African Union Summit takes place in Mauritania.

“This morning in Kigali, President Kagame is now meeting with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat and members of the AU reforms team ahead of the AU Summit to be held in Mauritania,” tweet reads.

According to AU, the 31st Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) will take place from 25th June to 2nd July 2018, under the theme “Winning the Fight against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation”.

Bizimana was speaking Sunday in Kigali during a burial ceremony of remains of 359 victims which were recently exhumed in Ndera Sector of Gasabo District.

Speaking on behalf of survivor families whose relatives were buried on Sunday, Antoine Ruvebana said that it was difficult to know whereabouts of the remains because people who had enough information used to mislead them.

“This process shows us that some convicts who were released from bail and sought pardon for their role in the genocide were not changed. They were not repent because, they didn’t want to facilitate us by revealing whereabouts of our fallen families,” he said.

Reacting on Ruvebana’s concerns, CNLG’s Bizimana said that survivors would no longer beg convicts to reveal whereabouts of the remains after 24 years. He requested the use of technology in searching them as the system is applied to the Jewish Genocide.

“Continuing to beseech killers result in nothing, rather it encourages them to continue to gloat over survivors. Different institutions will continue to discuss it, and one of possible solution is use of technology. To use machines which can reveal where the remains of victims are located,” he said.

City of Kigali Mayor, Marie Chantal Rwakazina said that having people who still drug feet in revealing whereabouts of remains of genocide victims shows that there is a long way to go to end deniers and trivializers of the genocide.

“This opportunity should be there to remind us that we need to put in place new measures to fight against the genocide ideology, denial and trivialization of all forms, having people reluctant to reveal whereabouts of the remains inform us that there is a long journey in fighting denial,” she said.

Elected in February 2016, Uwiyoboye is the Coordinator of the National Youth Council (NYC) in Nyarubaka Sector of Kamonyi District. She had received no training until mid last year when Noyau de Paix opened a civic education camp meeting for 700 youth committee members from five districts.

Running from July 2017 to June 2018, the one-year project was funded by Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at a tune of Rwf25 million.

“We attended the training and learned of the importance of working closely with other authorities like local leaders in serving the country. We built up synergies to serve the country. We built 12 latrines and 12 vegetable gardens for 12 different vulnerable households in Kamonyi. We also encouraged our fellow youth to participate in the last year’s presidential elections,” said Uwiyoboye.

She said these activities have positively changed the image of the youth in their communities because adult especially elderly people are now looking at the youth as important members of the community, differently from the years back when they were considered as indifferent on the community’s activities.

“The demand for help is too high; people are asking us to do the same as we did in their neighbouring areas. We are commitment to reaching out to a bigger number of the disadvantaged,” she added.

Olivier Mahoro, the Coordinator of NYC in Bweramana Sector, Ruhango District, shared similar gains from the project, saying his peers have now understood their responsibilities towards the nation and working hard to meet them.

“We had our physical strengths for the work of construction but we needed some money to buy materials for the roof; so Noyau de Paix supported us with the skills and finances. This project has become a stimulus for us to do more; we are keeping on helping the vulnerable within our communities,” he said.

Hassan Jean-Aimé, the Coordinator of NYC in Cyanika Sector of Burera District, said “We have acquired to set targets as performance contracts (Imihigo). Youth are often indifferent about politics but we have got to know that politics affect our lives in one way or another whether we get involved or not. We have understood our role in our communities’ development. We were challenged by rainstorms during our concluded activities but we are now going to do more in this dry season. We have got courage and love for these activities.”

The youth were recounting achievements Friday during an event to close the project in Muhanga District.

According to Hyacinthe Kabalisa, the Projects’ Coordinator at Noyau de Paix, this is a platform of 25 local organisations but the concluded project saw the intervention of only three including Kabgayi Diocese of the Catholic Church for the project’s implementation in the districts of Kamonyi, Muhanga and Ruhango; Peace and Durable Development in Burera and Peace House in Bugesera District.

Kabalisa said the project intended to raise civic education among the youth and encourage them to help tackle the shortage of proper latrines and high rates of stunting among children, issues that are occurring in many communities around the country.

The project saw 700 youth members attend civic education training and went out to mobilise their peers who built 59 latrines, 58 vegetable gardens, renovated two residential houses, developed seven stoves and cemented three houses, among other activities targeting the vulnerable households in the five districts.

The op-ed recently published in The East African by Professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti is typical of this prejudice. A recognized expert in sports marketing, she is perfectly entitled to her opinions. But not to her own facts, and her mistakes are numerous.

First, memorial sites of the Genocide against the Tutsi are not tourist attractions. They have never been marketed as such, and never will be. These are sacred places of burial and remembrance for Rwandans. Visitors to our country who wish to better understand our history are of course very welcome to visit the memorials. But to claim, as Professor Neirotti does, that Rwanda’s only two attractions are gorillas and death, betrays profound contempt.

Second, interest in visiting Rwanda is rising, not falling, as she asserts. Rwanda’s three main national parks – Akagera, Nyungwe, and Volcanoes — saw a 6% increase in visitor numbers in 2017. It is easy to see why. Rwanda is one of the safest and most hospitable countries on the planet. It also the only place where tourists can see the “Big Five” (lions, elephants, rhinos, leopards, and buffalo), as well as the critically endangered mountain gorilla and several bird species endemic to the high-altitude rainforest in Nyungwe National Park.

Rwanda’s attractions are varied and exciting. With the launch of the Congo-Nile trail, sports and mountain biking enthusiasts from all over the world are flocking to Rwanda, and we are also home to East Africa’s only canopy walk.

Third, Rwanda’s tourism strategy is not based solely on wildlife. Conference and meetings tourism is growing fast, driven by strategic investments in RwandAir, world-class hotels, and the iconic Kigali Convention Centre, one of Africa’s largest and most modern. Citizens of any country in the world can get a visa on arrival in Rwanda.

In 2017, Rwanda earned US$42 million from this segment, this year’s earnings are projected to be US$74 million. We have hosted the World Economic Forum, and two African Union Summits. Nearly 30,000 international delegates are descending on Kigali this year to participate in more than 90 confirmed international meetings. Last month, the International Congress and Convention Association ranked Rwanda the third most popular destination in Africa for hosting international events.

Rwanda’s visitors have varied accommodation options, ranging from major international hotel chains such as Radisson Blu, Marriott, and Serena, as well as the award-winning boutique eco-lodge, Bisate Lodge, where Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi stayed on their visit last month.

Our country has come a long way. Today, Rwanda has over 10,000 hotel rooms, up from just 600 in 2001. Professor Neirotti claims there are no flights from Rwanda to the UK, but in fact RwandAir has been flying to London-Gatwick since May 2017, alongside more than two dozen other destinations, including Brussels, Dubai, Mumbai, and most major cities in East and West Africa. New routes to the United States and China are set to launch in 2019.

Arsenal is one of the most popular teams, in the most-watched league, of the world’s most popular sport. The Arsenal jersey is seen 35 million times a day. The ‘Visit Rwanda’ deal has created enormous global interest, which is exactly what we wanted. Whatever opinions they have about the deal, people are talking like never before about Rwanda as a tourism destination.

Ultimately, in Rwanda, we are going to pursue our goals the way we think best, just as every other country should. For us it is already a win.

Kagame was speaking yesterday in Accra, Ghana, where he is attending the African Transformation Forum.

“Today I speak as President of my country but I also wear the hat of AU Chairperson. But to me it is more than that because everything happening on the continent is intertwined and it is important that we highlight things that need to be done that benefit us all,” he said.

Kagame said that to talk about transformation is to talk about people and resources that need to be put to good use.

“We are talking about the management of these resource, the political will and process that must accompany all these actions for us to be where we want to be. It is evident that Africa has all kinds of resources for us to move fast if we want to and there is no excuse, we haven’t found any justification that says Africa has an abundance of natural resources and yet continues to be poor decade after decade,” he highlighted.

“There is no excuse for us to be like this. Therefore the purpose of these discussions is to identify what is it that is critical and examine the mistakes we make that need to be corrected in order for us to move forward and prosper as a continent,” Kagame said.

Kagame mentioned that key components to transformation lie primarily in investing in people, in partnerships between the private and public sector and the policies that have been put in place to help achieve transformation of a continent.

“One thing we must all understand is that it is not just about understanding the problem but how effectively you execute it. We all share a common understanding of these are priorities but execution is where the problem lies and this is a mindset issue,” he noted.

According to Kagame, if the rest of the world is shunning Africa and say they want to be more inward looking, it is a reminder to Africans that the closer they come together and the more intra Africa trade they engage in, the better off they are and the failure to do so bears consequences.

Speaking in a telephone interview with IGIHE, NEC Executive Secretary, Charles Munyaneza said that the commission continues to conduct different preparatory activities.

“Preparatory activities include receiving individual candidates seeking NEC documents allowing them to collect signatures from voters supporting their candidatures. We have issued the documents and we believe that the process is going well. On Tuesday 19th June, we had already received six,” he said.

Munyaneza said that starting from July 12th to 25th, they will be receiving candidatures from both political parties and independent candidates.

“After receiving candidacies, we shall evaluate them and those who will fill the requirements will start to campaign,” he explained.

Munyaneza said that conducting all elections activities will cost Rwf5.4 billion.

He said that currently the number of voters is about 7.2 million people adding that civic education continues and youth and persons with disabilities have already been sensitized on how they will vote their representatives.

“We are organizing meetings with different institutions which play big part in elections. Tomorrow (Friday) we shall have a meeting with diplomats. We are also organizing another meeting with Civil Society Organisations and we will have another one with Political Parties,” he explained and noted that they are receiving election observers.

The Ministry of Education has committed to taking strong sanctions against students at all levels; nursery, primary and high school, that do carry cellphones at school premises as the devices have been known to deter students from concentrating on the academics.

The move was announced by the Minister of Education, Dr. Eugène Mutimura on June 12th 2018 in a news conference in Kigali.

The minister said that inspections have indicated that when students use cellphones at schools affects their concentration on studies.

Despite ruining their concentration, Mutimura said cellphones attract unnecessary attention and interactions that end up leading students into using drugs and unwanted pregnancies.

The decision had been announced two years ago, but later allowed their usage on account of using them for research purposes, according to the State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Dr. Isaac Munyakazi.

Munyakazi says that students will continue to access them while at home, but urges parents on stringent control.

“At home, parents should also control them and make sure that they are using them for research purposes. If such restrictions are not adhered to, children would be negatively impacted, compromising their studies,” he said in an interview with IGIHE on Thursday.

{{Some school head teachers back the move}}

Lycée de Kigali head teacher, Martin Masabo says that as the government has distributed computers in all schools, therefore no student should possess a phone at school.

“The government distributed computers in all primary and secondary schools, ICT facilities are available. In a case a student needs communication, the school management facilitates them to talk to parents. Some schools also have public cellphones,” he said.

However, Masabo says banning cellphones at school premises should be backed by individual student commitment.

The Head Teacher of Groupe Scholaire Kagugu Catholique, Jean Baptiste Habanabashaka okays the decision on one side, but urges that when telephones are well used, they bring good impact.

“I have some students at my school with mobile telephones which we keep for them. Because the school has internet, students use the phones in research. A cellphone is like a computer, it should be used at school only when conducting research,” he explained.

“For the ministry to completely ban use of phones at school is not a fair decision. They would allow them for research purposes. I think, there would be no problem,” he said suggesting that this would benefit schools which have no computers.

{{No research constraints}}

According to Minister Mutimura, banning cellphones will not affect research interests as all schools, primary and secondary have computers.

“Currently, a total of 950, three quarters of all primary schools around the country have computers with 100 each. In High Schools, 670 schools have computers. In total 67,000 students’ computers were distributed and ICT teachers, too have their computers,” he said.

For Munyakazi, some schools which do not have computers have other ICT materials they use in teaching ICT subject.

{{Parents back the decision}}

Parents support the decision saying it is in line with promoting the quality of education.

Esperance Kabanyana from Kicukiro District in the City of Kigali says that students should differentiate study times from luxury.

“This is a good decision. With students possessing cellphones at school, they spend much time in unproductive dialogues on social networks like WhatsApp and Facebook. Imagine a student seated in class texting and sending pictures, it affects their concentration and quality of learning,” she said.

Another parent Jean Bosco Nsanzamahoro says since internet has reached all corners of the country, phones should be permitted but with stringent regulations at schools.

“My son uses a cellphone searching for knowledge. It has helped him in learning many new aspects and is now performing better. But for some students that use them in other non academic issues should attract school regulation” he considers.