The heads of UN Agencies in Rwanda joined the entire country on Saturday during the Monthly Umuganda (community work) to learn more about grassroots realities on HIV/AIDS trends and to emphasise their campaign against the pandemic.

This comes in the awake of the global launch of the two-month (November and December) World Aids Campaign of promoting Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) to reduce new HIV infections. 

In a statement issued before the Saturday Umuganda, Aurelien Agbenonci, UN Resident Coordinator in Rwanda said that all Rwandans have the right to know how to prevent HIV infections and have access to voluntary testing. 

"With this campaign we’re encouraging everybody to have themselves, their partner, and children tested,” he said.

According to the UN statement, this special Umuganda included a two-hour dialogue session at all sites where the community’s worked, ended with a communication on HIV response, as part of the UN action plan to support countries in HIV response.

The Government of Rwanda set the Umuganda as a platform of lobbying and advocacy for the two months World AIDS day campaign this year as a way of tackling HIV issues in Rwanda.

According to Dr Kekoura Kourama, the UNAIDS Country Coordinator in Rwanda,   Programmes such as family planning and prenatal consultation as well as paediatric consultation will only achieve their objectives if couples work together.

He added that that is why this year’s Rwanda World Aids Campaign focuses on voluntary counselling and testing among couples to make it more effective.

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