To help them cope with stress, from 12th June 2025, Caritas Rwanda organized a 2-day wellness retreat for Headquarter team at Cenetra Hotel. This program featured self-awareness and peer reflections, group works and relaxant exercises among others, fostering well-being, connection and inner growth.
In his opening remarks, Father Oscar Kagimbura, the Secretary General of Caritas Rwanda, recalled that a healthy soul dwells in a healthy body and added that that is exactly why Caritas Rwanda organized this retreat. He encouraged everyone to fully participate and benefit from its positive impact.
“A healthy soul dwells in a healthy body, which is precisely why Caritas Rwanda organized this retreat”, said Father Oscar Kagimbura, the Secretary General of Caritas Rwanda in his opening remarks. He exhorted everyone to fully participate and benefit from its positive impact.
Dr. Uwihoreye Chaste, who facilitated the sessions, described mental health as comprising four stages of coping with stress: (i) striving, (ii) managing, (iii) struggling and (iv) crisis. According to Dr. Chaste, the last two stages require professional mental health support, but with proper care, recovery is often possible (noting that only about 3% of mental health disorders are untreatable).
The retreat didn’t only provide theories; it also emphasized on self-reflection techniques, peer reflexions, group activities and relaxant exercises.
Coping with stress is possible
After engaging in various exercises (self-reflection, partner share sessions and group activities), Dr. Chaste urged every retreat attendee to practice self-reflection at least twice a day, since it promotes good mental health. He also advised seeking help from a mental health professional before reaching the point of struggling or being in crisis.
While the team members were participating in relaxant activities, their joy was evident. The games focused on facing stress by making quick decisions, while others focused on teamwork or simply playing or dancing. The key lesson was that stress itself isn’t always harmful, the real problem comes when it takes a long time to be handled. To watch the video about relaxing exercises during the wellness retreat, click here.
To manage stress, whether work-related or family-related, it’s important to adopt the following six habits:
- Get eight hours of sleep every day;
- Stay physically active (through exercise or work);
- Be social (belong to a group, family);
- Practice self-reflection;
- Relaxing;
- Plan tasks within your capacity.
The retreat’s teaching methods also relayed on Kinyarwanda proverbs to help participants share and cope with stress without being overwhelmed. Examples included:
- Iyo utazi aho uva, ntumenya iyo ujya (If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going);
- Iyo utazi aho ujya, aho ugeze hose ugira ngo ni ho wajyaga (If you don’t know your destination, every place will look like your intended one);
- Agahinda gasangiwe, karatuba (Shared sorrow is lessened, decrease);
- Agahinda kadasangiwe karatumba (Unshared sorrow weighs heavy);
- Ahakomeye ni ho hava amakoma (White sorghum growths in hard soil);
- Agati gatwawe n’isuri, kajyana iteka n’agataka (A plant carried away by erosion, is always accompanied by a piece of soil);
- Iyo uciye ahakomeye, iyo hatagukomerekeje haragukomeza (What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger).