I think we need Umuganda in America. Once a month, a community would get together to work on a project. We could repair someone's roof maybe or build a new swing at the park. The most important part for Americans would be the community meeting that follows. This would allow you to discuss problems, to learn about each other, to care for one another--Just to take time to stop and see the intrinsic value in one another adds value to your life. These meetings would lead to local support systems, which could in turn help reduce not only poverty but also emotional and spiritual issues that individuals are having. If there is anything we can learn from East African cultures, is the communal structure of life has real value. Many of our issues come from losing touch with one another, losing the value of our decisions. Let's adopt Umuganda into American culture and see what kind of real, physical differences it can make in our communities. I'd love to hear people's thoughts.
Building bricks is a muddy process especially when doing so in an assembly line fashion, which is exactly what we did for Umuganda. Umuganda is a day of service on the last Saturday of every month for all of Rwanda. The entire community gets together to work on a service project and then a community meeting follows. We built bricks on the last Saturday of September for a local school. First we carried water from a nearby neighbors water spicket. Then we dug up the grass and dirt to make mud. We gathered these mud piles together and had an assembly line to take them over to the clay molds. The clay molds had to be stuffed full of mud and patted down thoroughly. We made over a hundred bricks this way. The American volunteers worked and laughed with the Rwandan community members to finish the project.
I think we need Umuganda in America. Once a month, a community would get together to work on a project. We could repair someone's roof maybe or build a new swing at the park. The most important part for Americans would be the community meeting that follows. This would allow you to discuss problems, to learn about each other, to care for one another--Just to take time to stop and see the intrinsic value in one another adds value to your life. These meetings would lead to local support systems, which could in turn help reduce not only poverty but also emotional and spiritual issues that individuals are having. If there is anything we can learn from East African cultures, is the communal structure of life has real value. Many of our issues come from losing touch with one another, losing the value of our decisions. Let's adopt Umuganda into American culture and see what kind of real, physical differences it can make in our communities. I'd love to hear people's thoughts.
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AuthorMy name is Tara, and I am from Whitefish Montana. I graduated from the University of Oregon in 2014 with a degree in International Studies with minors in French and African Studies. I studied abroad in Tanzania in 2012. I volunteered in Rwanda from September 2014-November 2016. These are my personal experiences and not reflected by the US Peace Corps. Archives
November 2016
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