Sebishwi fills Mpayimana’s Senate seat

Juvenal Sebishwi was on Thursday sworn in to replace the late Senator Elie Mpayimana in the Upper Chamber of Parliament. He has been the Secretary General of the Community of Rwandan Potters (CAPORWA). Sebishwi’s swearing in ceremony witnessed by President Paul Kagame at the Parliamentary chambers coincided with the official ceremony to mark the commencement of the 2009 Judicial Year. Born in 1966 in Ruhango, Southern Province, Sebishwi has through CAPORWA been actively involved in activities to improve the lives of Batwa communities. He also strived to enable them have an impact on political decision making on the local, national and international levels. He and others formed CAPORWA after 1994 as an organization to empower the Batwa communities to realise the importance of their participation in public decision-making. CAPORWA also aims at making new socio-economic opportunities more accessible to the Twa communities through facilitating training of skills, research and dissemination of the necessary information as well as facilitating access to credit and new appropriate technologies. Sebishiwi now replaces the late Senator Mpayimana who succumbed to stomach and kidney complications at the end of October 2008. Mpayimana, was also known by many as having stood by the truth when he was a practicing journalist during the 1990-94 liberation struggle and a critic of the then government. Before his appointment as a Senator, Mpayimana was a commissioner in the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC). Sebishwi, a graduate of Agriculture, vowed to continue working to promote the interests of the nation and the wellbeing of Rwandans during his tenure in the Senate. Ends