Cardinal Antoine Kambanda has called for collective efforts towards achieving Unity and Community Resilience at all levels of the society.
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Speaking at the launch of ‘Ubumwe n&039;Ubudaheranwa’ project (Unity and Community Resilience), His Eminence said that every activity of human interest is in the church’s teaching, in the past days the Archdiocese of Kigali has been investing in different Unity and Community Resilience activities.
The project is spearheaded by the Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Kigali, with the support of the Ministry of National Unity and Civic Engagement (MINUBUMWE). The Unity and Community Resilience project will be piloted in Nyarugenge, Gakenke and Rulindo, then later to the other remaining districts.
The project intends to reinforce the reconstruction of Rwandan communities through social healing and social cohesion and the promotion of peaceful coexistence for self-reliance.
"We started the project so that we contribute to giving society hope of life through our teachings and learning from our history,” said Kambanda, adding that people need to sit down and discuss the dark history and the pain it caused them, hold each other's hands through the healing journey, and by doing so, it contributes to healing and to building a brighter future.
He added that: "We have refused to be bound by our history, we choose to share it, 2018 was a unique year of forgiving and moving on, I remember we were commemorating at the 25 time the 1994 Genocide against the Tusti. The Catholic Church took an initiative through the teachings of ‘Christ is our unity’ and also celebrated the efforts made in unity and reconciliation.”
Kambanda added that the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi damaged social infrastructure, relationships, trust, and unity. The church’s contribution to reconstruction, rebuilding, unity and reconciliation is equality important.
The Permanent Secretary at MINUBUMWE, Clarisse Munezero, said that 28 years after Genocide, a lot of efforts have been invested in achieving unity and reconciliation.
"The project is aimed at decentralizing social healing and social cohesion. It will be implemented through dialogues, capacity building and counselling. There is a need for joint efforts with different stakeholders to achieve unity and reconciliation,” she said.
The Programme Coordinator of Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Kigali, Anociatta Kaligirwa, said that: "this an opportunity to bring all efforts towards unity together. We have been working on similar projects of unity and reconciliation which will make it easy and familiar for a similar project.
Kaligirwa, added that the selection of the pilot districts was from the discussion that were made and surveys that have been carried out.