The City of Kigali has started community work that enables personnel from various professions to give back to their communities through their field of expertise. The programme was inaugurated Tuesday during the closure of Kigali City Councillors’ Week at Petit Stadium in Kigali. During the week, volunteer health workers diagnosed city residents of different ailments while urban settlement experts explained the concept of the master plan and law experts helped address land issues. The community work, commonly known as Umuganda, will be held in the traditional manner every last Saturday of the month. “Kigali City is the first to implement it but we hope to spread this new concept for Umuganda to the rest of the country,” Local Government Minister Francis Kaboneka said. Ordinarily, Umuganda has been focusing on menial activities like infrastructure development within communities. “Professional community work will further hasten national development starting from here in Kigali. We request you to spread it to all administrative levels in the city for other parts to learn from” he noted. The president of the city Advisory Council, Anastase Rutabingwa, said they chose to start the new form of community work because the city needs more professional works. “It’s not enough to carry out sanitation during Umuganda alone. We need health workers, law experts in domestic wrangles, land experts to explain clearly the city’s master plan and many more,” he said. Rutabingwa called upon any professionals willing to give back to the community to work with local authorities to get space to render their expertise. City Councillors have been in communities since last week listening to people, something which the acting Mayor hailed as very productive. “We received many ideas which we hope to announce soon during a general assembly to let people know the outcomes,” Parfait Busabizwa, the acting mayor, said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
