A Multitude of Drops: Umuganda: Community Work Day

Umuganda, a word that means "coming together in common purpose to achieve an outcome." Umuganda, a practice that has helped build and rebuild Rwanda through the work of its citizens.

Umuganda is a practice of community service in Rwanda. The last Saturday of the month, citizens of Rwanda aged 18-65 are obliged (and those outside the age range or foreign visitors/expats, welcomed) to participate in work that benefits the infrastructural, environmental, and economic development of the country. The streets are shut down, buses stop running, and businesses are closed as around 80% of the country's population engage their local communities in work to benefit their country.

Traditionally, Umuganda happened when Rwandans would call on their friends, family, and neighbors to help in times of need. Think a good, old-fashioned barn raising in American history. Umuganda was institutionalized in various iterations over the last half of the twentieth century, often in ways that were not received favorably. In particular, the term was abused during the 1994 genocide in describing the need to seek out Tutsis who may have been in hiding. Despite this checkered past, the government of Rwanda reintroduced Umuganda in 1998 as a means of unifying the country and promoting a shared national identity.

Today, Rwandans eagerly participate in Umuganda monthly. From building schools and clinics to assisting community members in need, the impact of Umuganda is vast. Since 2007, the estimated community contribution is valued at over 60 million US dollars. Impressively, it is not allowed for anyone to receive any contribution, either financial or otherwise, for their work during Umuganda. It is entirely done out of service to the country.

The service lasts for around three hours and after the communities gather in a meeting about the work that was done and what to do in the next month. There are various levels of institutional organization—from community to national—that help advise Umuganda projects in order to best benefit the country’s development. There are also yearly contests highlighting particularly successful projects.

Umuganda happened the second Saturday we were in Rwanda, but because the streets were shut down and the buses weren’t running, we did not participate in the organized service. However, we had our own Umuganda with some of the youth from the Kigali parish of the LCR this past Saturday.

We spent a few hours in the morning clearing a plot of land below the hill the church sits on that will eventually be the home of a parsonage and office. We also did some work sweeping and assisting in general landscaping around the grounds. It was hard work—using machetes to chop at weeds and heavy hoes to break up the ground, bundles of dried stalks used as brooms—but the morale was high as we listened to music over speakers and shared in conversation with the youth.

After the work was completed, we had an impromptu dance party in which the youth taught as some traditional ways of dancing to modern music popular in Rwanda. If you know me, you know I love a good dance party, and so we stepped and swayed and turned with joy as we let loose and built on friendships. We danced in a line into the church where we sat in a circle and passed a guitar around, sharing in songs both in English and Kinyarwanda and sipping on Fantas. Even though I woke up tired, feeling the long week of Kinyarwanda lessons, I was reminded how life-giving it can be to enter into community with other people. There is such a simple beauty in sharing with another in hard work, good conversation, and a little bit of dancing. Pastor Robert estimated that our work over a little more than two hours was worth 100,000 RWF—around 150 dollars in just labor.

It makes me dream of what Umuganda could do for the rest of the world. In communities where people don’t know their neighbors or turn their eyes away from someone in need—this is where Umuganda is needed the most. Imagine confronting the needs of your community head on, of letting go of your own agenda for one morning and celebrating the commonality of humanity with those around you. If for one day, the world could put down our computers and phones, its flags and road blocks and guns, its walls that shut out those who look or act or believe differently, and instead reach out a hand to those standing next to us, how much work could those hands do?

Consider how you can celebrate Umuganda in your own life. Maybe you stop and ask your neighbor how they are instead of giving nothing more than a quick nod as you both walk your dogs. Or perhaps you could rake the yard of the man down the street or go with your Pastor to visit shut-ins during the week. How beautiful it could be to enter into this space of community—you might just get your own dance party out of it.