Focus Media (Kigali)
Timothy Kisambira
12 October 2008
A system of organizing NGOs in clusters according to their activity has had significant results.
The Norwegian organization ACT, together with other NGOs, has built 70 houses, 50 water tanks, given out 15 cows to improve on the lives of the local people in Kayonza district.
This has been achieved by its system of grouping organizations in clusters dealing in different services. The services range from sanitation, adult education, construction of houses, providing water to local people, among others.
Christine Mahongherwa, who works for an NGO that is battling the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, says that the clusters were formed to avoid duplication of work.
"You would find that an NGO would go into an area and do a certain activity such as building houses, and then a second one comes along with the same service; at the end of the day, you have several organizations doing the same thing. So we wanted to change the approach, and came up with the idea of forming clusters. Now we know who is doing what," she says.
John Bideri, the executive director of Rwanda Rural Rehabilitation Initiative, says that the primary objective of forming clusters and helping people, is reconciliation.
Therefore, the main target groups are genocide survivors, released prisoner who had been involved in the genocide and the vulnerable people in the communities.
"The idea behind this is to reconcile people, and to develop trust in each other," Bideri explains. Water tanks are a good, although not obvious, example of how to build trust amongst the people.
"We have built these tanks in a way that two houses share one tank, so the two families will meet when fetching water, and in the process they are sharing, talking, and simply seeing each other. This is the driving force we are looking at-life will move on," Bideri says.
According to Francoise Mugabo the president of Mosaic Foundation, Rwanda has stood out as one of the countries ACT cluster model has registered success. Because of this, other countries in the Great Lakes region have come in to learn how it works.
Kubisa Sustain-Lav Let, the coordinator of Africa Live from Bukavu, has visited Kayonza and concludes that they have a lot to learn from Rwanda.
"We have seen many things happening here in these clusters and we think that we shall be in good position to also implement these policies," he says, adding that this system can also help to reconcile the two countries.
"We should put aside the political difference and move forward."
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