The death of nine-year-old Davis Ihirwe Rudasingwa in June left the nation in shock. The last born in a family of three was found to have died by strangulation at his family home in Ndera Sector, Gasabo District, on June 12. A house help who lived with the family was subsequently arrested and eventually convicted by court for the murder. Rudasingwa’s family has never been the same. The tragedy has since inspired his father, Victor Emmanuel Rudasingwa, to come up with a solution he hopes will help prevent similar crimes in the future. Rudasingwa, along with his workmates at a local firm DIRECA, have developed ‘The Tekana app’, a safety portal where families hiring house helps can access information about their past. This would however apply to house helps who have worked elsewhere (in the same role) before. “It’ll help make families feel a bit safer hiring someone with an idea on who they’re going to live with,” he told The New Times. The portal will include information about house helps and casual workers, allowing prospective employers an opportunity to have a sneak peek into the behaviour and conduct of someone they intend to hire, he explained. How the portal works Rudasingwa said the portal will include name, IDs, place of birth, parents or guardians, job position, period of employment, among others. To access the information one will need to subscribe to the portal, www.tekanapp.com. Information about the house helps or casual workers will be filled in by present employers. To register in the portal one has to pay Rwf3000. The platform is in the four official languages of Rwanda, namely; Kinyarwanda, English, French and Swahili. Theodore Niyombonwa, managing director of Innovator Supply and Cleaning which connects casual workers with prospective employers, welcomed the initiative. “It’ll make things easier for many families,” he told The New Times. Vestine Mukeshimana, a house help who lives in Gasabo District, said the platform was a positive development “since it’ll also protect us because employers will more likely honour their commitments.”
