2020 has been a challenging one to everyone, with the outbreak of the novel coronavirus which disrupted lives. However, despite the negative impact the virus has caused, there is a good side that can’t be overlooked.

Time with family

During the lockdown, the world went from constantly busy to completely shut down.

Among those hit hard were parents, dealing with kids at home fulltime wasn’t an easy task. However, many found that they were able to spend more time with their families. 

Jacky Iribagiza, a counsellor, says to her, the days spent during the lockdown seemed quite pacifying, a golden opportunity to dismiss the old ways of doing things and make room for the new. 

She says, for instance, her three children turned out to be good chefs, and taking up house chores became teamwork by the whole family, a thing she never thought as parents they could instil in children.

"Initially, we struggled to adjust with the uncertainty around us as everyone was always in a hurry to leave the house. But now, we have adjusted to the new norm which we expect to stick by. This is the positive side we have so far experienced this year,” she says.

Alyn Sano, an artiste, says this year has been the best so far when it comes to connecting with family members.

She says staying at home as a family was the only option, and at first, it was hard to be forced to stay indoors, but with time, she came to learn how to work and spend ample time with her own people.

"This year has also helped some couples work things out together as they had enough time to discuss and share their concerns, thus strengthening their bond and union,” adds Sano.

Use of technology

Pax Elisee Mfura, a Kigali resident, highlights that one of the good things about the lockdown period was the ability to shop online.

He explains that during total lockdown, when people couldn’t move as usual, the availability of online shopping helped a lot as an alternative.

In addition to that, health-wise, Mfura says, it was a smart/quick move to deploy the mobile payment point of Sale (POS) from telecoms as a strategy to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 in the country.

"This is one of the wins that I would say came out of the tough situation this year. Now almost every shop receives digital payment, which may be, would have taken a good amount of time to set up,” he says.

Florence Mwashimba, says with her enterprise, known as Kigali Farmers and Artisans Market (Kigalifaam), an online shop, the experience has been long and excruciating because she didn’t realise there wasn’t much support to easily start an online business around.

However, she is quick to point out that there has always been the positive side of this, which is meeting and discussing with other people facing similar challenges, therefore, shared ideas on how to tackle hurdles.

"For example, there were more vendors willing to partner with us online since they needed their products to reach consumers. Besides, there was the added bonus of working from home which reduced costs,” she says.

Mwashimba says the reason behind forming new partnerships is because they realised they needed to work together with more people to fully utilise and maximise all of their  resources while cutting costs. 

On top of this positive impact, she says since government offices had reduced staff, certain services were quick to get as you didn’t have to queue or spend money to go to them.

She advises that for those in business, there is a need to be flexible as not everyone is comfortable with online shopping. Most of the business people had to get creative on how to showcase products since many other people were now going online.

Cashless transactions 

A lockdown all over the world reduced access to cash, which has seen people move to a cashless system as a safety measure to curb Covid-19. 

Enock Shyaka, a business person in Kigali, says on the good side, cashless transactions proved that people can minimise the time and costs associated with handling, storing, and depositing paper money.

However, he points out that the only problem was for those without bank accounts, who might have been struggling to keep up with evolving cashless technology.

"This could, however, act as a wakeup call for concerned bodies and institutions to ensure they create awareness for those who still haven’t found a need to go cashless,” he adds.

Mwashimba notes that mobile money pay took off and the removal of transfer fees, really helped most people save money greatly.

Awareness

The pandemic’s devastating effects are increasing our alertness to other trends that could have similar or even worse outcomes, like climate change. Increased concern for our health, and that of the planet, may lead to decisions that actually combat climate change.