USAID Gimbuka Staff visit program beneficiaries in Nyamasheke, Rubavu, Rusizi and Rutsiro districts.
After a nine months’ implementation of activities for Country Operational Plan 21, USAID Program has organized a joint field visit aimed at meeting Diocesan Caritas Staff and their respective Directors to share their experience in reinforcing the synergy for program sustainability.
Headed by Father Yves Sewadata, Deputy Secretary General, the 3 days’ visit started on Tuesday, July 12th to Thursday 14th 2022 and covered the districts of Karongi, Nyamasheke, Rubavu, Rusizi and Rutsiro in the Western Province. This served as an opportunity to meet district officials and to share the program implementation progress, plan together the field visit and have their feedback in order to respond to community needs.
The USAID Gimbuka “Be self-resilient” activity delivers various services envisaged to help supported households achieve their self-reliance. These services include among others, the Economic strengthening through the promotion of savings and lending activities for caregivers of served OVC and their digitalization; Technical, Vocational and Educational Training (TVET) for youth. For direct beneficiaries, the program provides services related to psychosocial support, referral for services provided by other partners like HIV services (HIV testing and counselling, ARV, …), education support including school materials, school fees, startup kits for some TVET schools graduates. The program is also providing the prevention of HIV and GBV messages for children aged 9 to 14 Years old both in community and schools.
Visiting Gimbuka beneficiaries currently completing their internships in tailoring, Mrs. Anne Marie Dukuzumuremyi, Vice Mayor in charge of social services of Rusizi district reminded the young female interns that they hold their future in their hands and that it’s their responsibility to shape it well. Mrs. Dukuzumuremyi also appreciated Gimbuka Program for its support to help the interns achieve their dreams.
Gimbuka along its journey, is striving to involve as much as possible other National and local partners including local leaders, Catholic Church networks and a certain number of community volunteers (CMVs, CCLF, CI, etc.) for provision of services to beneficiaries and their mentoring.
The program organizes joint field visits every three months to mainly gather feedback from local partners (beneficiaries, volunteers, local leaders, health facilities, etc.) on Gimbuka program implementation to inform both implementation and future planning; to find out some applicable solutions so potential challenges identified along the implementation; to ensure the local partners (Local Leaders, volunteers and beneficiaries) have required information on the program close out, graduation process and increase of their involvement in the program activities and mentorship of field staff; to ensure that the field staff are well supported throughout the program implementation; and to ensure the project implementation is well documented and key documents are well kept at all field office levels.
The delegation visited different Internal Savings and Lending Groups (ISLG), TVET Graduates in Agakiriro Centers, Interns in partner organizations, among others. Beneficiaries expressed their gratitude for the visit and for all the efforts invested by the program to create sustainable impact in their lives.
In a courtesy visit to Nyamasheke district office, Deputy Secretary General and a delegation from the program met with Vice Mayor Athanasie Mukankusi who is in charge of social affairs. They discussed current projects and the impact of Caritas Rwanda, through USAID Gimbuka in Nyamasheke District. Vice Mayor Mukankusi appreciated the fruitful partnership between the district and Caritas Rwanda to change lives of the people of Nyamasheke districts in all categories, be it children, youth, adults and the aged. ‘’We know that we can always count on Caritas Rwanda when it comes to helping the needy in our district. Our long term partnership and the impact created throughout the program period is proof that joining hands to support men and women of this district will bear even more fruits in the future’’. She said.
Uniting Karongi, Nyamasheke, Rubavu, Rusizi and Rutsiro Districts Vice Mayors in Charge of Social Affairs; Good Governance/Gender Directors; JADF; Health Directors; Education Directors; RIB representatives; Immigration Officers; RRP+ Representatives; Directors of Caritas at Diocese level and Caritas Rwanda staff, the joint field visit achieved key results including: Improvement of the collaboration between program staff, priests and other local partners in the implementation of the program, successful program documentation at all levels of the field offices; program implementation process was communicated to the management and the necessary support and solutions to the encountered challenges and mechanisms to minimize them were put in place.