A Discussion with Marie Aimee Umugeni, President, Nyamirambo Women’s Center, Kigali, Rwanda
With: Marie Aimee Umugeni Berkley Center Profile
June 22, 2016
Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Fellowship Project, undergraduate student Mariam Diefallah interviewed Marie Aimee Umugeni, the president of Nyamirambo Women’s Center, in June 2016. Here, Umugeni discusses the importance of women’s participation and empowerment for Rwanda’s future and the ways through which the center contributes to achieving social justice through educating women.
Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
My name is Umugeni Marie Aimee. I am the president of Nyamirambo Women’s Center, and I work here everyday as a coordinator.
How did your background shape your current interests?
I am one of the 18 women who started Nyamirambo Women’s Center. I was a member from 2008 and until today. In 2011, the other founding members selected me to become the president of the center after I finished my university studies, as I used to study management.
In your opinion, how is the center contributing in the current development of the country?
I think our center, along other similar ones, are very important for the development of the country. When people work together and make efforts together, the results are always good for their communities. For example, for our center, we have a lot of women who are working together. Through the center they have jobs, and they are gaining more skills everyday. Something like that is for sure contributing to the overall development of our country.
As Nyamirambo is the Muslim neighborhood in Kigali, do many women and their children from different faiths come to the center?
The center is open to women from all faiths and to their children.
Would you say women face more challenges in Rwanda?
Yes, of course. Women are always facing much more challenges compared to men everywhere. But our center is aware of that, and we try to help women have better access to different opportunities. We provide training workshops on Rwandan law regarding women’s rights. In these workshops, we teach women about the rights they have, and how they can use them for their own benefit. We even teach them about the government's new rules, as our government now has a system of gender surveillance that makes sure there is a gender balance in different companies and centers around the country. We basically tell women: these are the laws, you have to call the police if one of these problems happen to you. So I think the center faces those challenges by teaching women about their rights.
How exactly do the workshops go? How do you advertise for them, and who usually participates?
We promote for our workshops in different places. Our lecturers sometimes come from the ministry responsible of family and women’s issues, as the ministry provide those lecturers to help others, because they know the law and Rwandan regulations really well. So they usually send someone for a period of a week, and we advertise in our neighborhood around the center. We do not only invite the members and women working here, but any woman from the surrounding places who interested is welcome to attend. Many women come for those workshops, because women now want to learn about their rights and the laws that exist to help them. Women want to know about the opportunities they can get. Sometimes there are people who volunteer to come teach the women; they are not from the ministry, but they are passionate about the same topics.
Is the center mainly working in Nyamirambo, or in surrounding neighborhoods as well?
We are only popular here in this neighborhood.
How do women join the center? What is the process?
Usually many women come and ask to join the center when we advertise for our sewing courses. We make announcements around the neighborhood, and women come and register for the courses. Many women also come for our literacy courses. Actually, more women come for the literacy courses than the sewing ones. We try to offer as many courses as we can, because we know many women want to be part of the center.
I saw a small library and classroom next to the center. Are those for the members’ children, or can any child from the neighborhood join those activities?
It is for all the children in the neighborhood. The kids of the members and the children of the women working here also go to the library, but other children are always welcome to join as well.
Can you tell me more about the activities the library offers the children?
It is an after-school program. We divide them into groups, where some kids come in the morning and others come in the afternoon. The kids who come in the morning usually go to the library, but we also have many activities that the kids enjoy. When they come, they do not only do readings, they also learn how to draw and paint, they sing songs, and many other activities that they really like. When kids read stories, it encourages them to read more, to sing about the stories they enjoyed and to even draw and paint about those stories. From time to time, we have volunteers who come from around Rwanda and even other countries, who come and play with the children.
As the president of a center dedicated to empowering women, how do you personally define justice in terms of the work the center does?
I think educating women is justice. I think through giving women those workshops, we educate them about their rights and what the law says. We teach them when to call the police and how to help themselves. For example, we teach women that they have to go the police’s hospital if their children were raped, those examples, and in that way, we teach them how to live justice and be part of a just community. I think we contribute to the justice of our community because we engage the locals, including ourselves, to find solutions that can work for us and our community.
How do you see the future of the center?
We are very happy with what we have achieved. When we started this center, we did not know we will have all of those women working here with us, changing their lives and the lives of their families. We wish to grow in the future, and to be able to have more women working with us, and also more branches in other places. People in Nyamirambo know us, but when you go to other parts of Kigali, people still do not know us, so we would like to achieve more and have more members in the future.
How do you see the future of the children here different from that of their mothers?
I think children’s future will be much better. Many women working here did not use to have enough money to send their kids to school; now they can. They can buy clothes to their families; they can feed them. A problem we face here in Nyamirambo, for example, is that because it is a Muslim neighborhood, many men can have two wives, and some men leave their first wives. Those wives find themselves without money and have to learn how to survive on their own and take care of their children when their husbands go live with the other families. So the center helped many of the women in that situation.
What are the main challenges the center faces?
The biggest problem we are facing is to find a way to be self-sustainable. We started the center in 2008 with the help of some people from Slovenia. They agreed to support us for two years. We worked with them for those two years, but after those that, we had to wait until they ask people and different institutions from their country to donate some money to keep the project going. That period when we did not have any funding from them, we found ourselves suffering a lot. Some activities were stopped. We could not support the computer classes or the English classes for women because we did not have any money to pay the teachers or to buy the materials we needed. So that was the first challenge for us. That was when we had an idea and decided to have an activity that would support the activities of the center and keep them going. We want to be self-sustainable so our projects will keep running without depending on anyone. We have not yet achieved that, but we are working very hard.
What are the income-generating activities you have here?
We have the sewing project and its products, and also the walking tours we give tourists around our neighborhood. Now, we are mostly depending on those projects for funding. Because from 2013, the Slovenian people stopped supporting us, and from that time, we have been working on the sewing project to generate more income. We also have a woman from Switzerland, Monika, who is helping us develop ideas for the designs of the sewing projects. She also helped us with a fundraising event in Switzerland, who supported us to pay the rent for some of the rooms at the center.
Do you have anything else to add for the publication’s readers? What is the most important thing you want people to remember about the center?
The most important thing to remember that here in the center, we are a group of women who are trying to support themselves and their families because we want to grow together. We do not want to have selfish business. We are trying to help women who did not have a chance to study or go to school to have better opportunities that will help them to survive and have better future for their children. When we started, we worked really hard to understand our rights and our kids’ rights. Now we are learning the skills that will let us be ourselves.
My name is Umugeni Marie Aimee. I am the president of Nyamirambo Women’s Center, and I work here everyday as a coordinator.
How did your background shape your current interests?
I am one of the 18 women who started Nyamirambo Women’s Center. I was a member from 2008 and until today. In 2011, the other founding members selected me to become the president of the center after I finished my university studies, as I used to study management.
In your opinion, how is the center contributing in the current development of the country?
I think our center, along other similar ones, are very important for the development of the country. When people work together and make efforts together, the results are always good for their communities. For example, for our center, we have a lot of women who are working together. Through the center they have jobs, and they are gaining more skills everyday. Something like that is for sure contributing to the overall development of our country.
As Nyamirambo is the Muslim neighborhood in Kigali, do many women and their children from different faiths come to the center?
The center is open to women from all faiths and to their children.
Would you say women face more challenges in Rwanda?
Yes, of course. Women are always facing much more challenges compared to men everywhere. But our center is aware of that, and we try to help women have better access to different opportunities. We provide training workshops on Rwandan law regarding women’s rights. In these workshops, we teach women about the rights they have, and how they can use them for their own benefit. We even teach them about the government's new rules, as our government now has a system of gender surveillance that makes sure there is a gender balance in different companies and centers around the country. We basically tell women: these are the laws, you have to call the police if one of these problems happen to you. So I think the center faces those challenges by teaching women about their rights.
How exactly do the workshops go? How do you advertise for them, and who usually participates?
We promote for our workshops in different places. Our lecturers sometimes come from the ministry responsible of family and women’s issues, as the ministry provide those lecturers to help others, because they know the law and Rwandan regulations really well. So they usually send someone for a period of a week, and we advertise in our neighborhood around the center. We do not only invite the members and women working here, but any woman from the surrounding places who interested is welcome to attend. Many women come for those workshops, because women now want to learn about their rights and the laws that exist to help them. Women want to know about the opportunities they can get. Sometimes there are people who volunteer to come teach the women; they are not from the ministry, but they are passionate about the same topics.
Is the center mainly working in Nyamirambo, or in surrounding neighborhoods as well?
We are only popular here in this neighborhood.
How do women join the center? What is the process?
Usually many women come and ask to join the center when we advertise for our sewing courses. We make announcements around the neighborhood, and women come and register for the courses. Many women also come for our literacy courses. Actually, more women come for the literacy courses than the sewing ones. We try to offer as many courses as we can, because we know many women want to be part of the center.
I saw a small library and classroom next to the center. Are those for the members’ children, or can any child from the neighborhood join those activities?
It is for all the children in the neighborhood. The kids of the members and the children of the women working here also go to the library, but other children are always welcome to join as well.
Can you tell me more about the activities the library offers the children?
It is an after-school program. We divide them into groups, where some kids come in the morning and others come in the afternoon. The kids who come in the morning usually go to the library, but we also have many activities that the kids enjoy. When they come, they do not only do readings, they also learn how to draw and paint, they sing songs, and many other activities that they really like. When kids read stories, it encourages them to read more, to sing about the stories they enjoyed and to even draw and paint about those stories. From time to time, we have volunteers who come from around Rwanda and even other countries, who come and play with the children.
As the president of a center dedicated to empowering women, how do you personally define justice in terms of the work the center does?
I think educating women is justice. I think through giving women those workshops, we educate them about their rights and what the law says. We teach them when to call the police and how to help themselves. For example, we teach women that they have to go the police’s hospital if their children were raped, those examples, and in that way, we teach them how to live justice and be part of a just community. I think we contribute to the justice of our community because we engage the locals, including ourselves, to find solutions that can work for us and our community.
How do you see the future of the center?
We are very happy with what we have achieved. When we started this center, we did not know we will have all of those women working here with us, changing their lives and the lives of their families. We wish to grow in the future, and to be able to have more women working with us, and also more branches in other places. People in Nyamirambo know us, but when you go to other parts of Kigali, people still do not know us, so we would like to achieve more and have more members in the future.
How do you see the future of the children here different from that of their mothers?
I think children’s future will be much better. Many women working here did not use to have enough money to send their kids to school; now they can. They can buy clothes to their families; they can feed them. A problem we face here in Nyamirambo, for example, is that because it is a Muslim neighborhood, many men can have two wives, and some men leave their first wives. Those wives find themselves without money and have to learn how to survive on their own and take care of their children when their husbands go live with the other families. So the center helped many of the women in that situation.
What are the main challenges the center faces?
The biggest problem we are facing is to find a way to be self-sustainable. We started the center in 2008 with the help of some people from Slovenia. They agreed to support us for two years. We worked with them for those two years, but after those that, we had to wait until they ask people and different institutions from their country to donate some money to keep the project going. That period when we did not have any funding from them, we found ourselves suffering a lot. Some activities were stopped. We could not support the computer classes or the English classes for women because we did not have any money to pay the teachers or to buy the materials we needed. So that was the first challenge for us. That was when we had an idea and decided to have an activity that would support the activities of the center and keep them going. We want to be self-sustainable so our projects will keep running without depending on anyone. We have not yet achieved that, but we are working very hard.
What are the income-generating activities you have here?
We have the sewing project and its products, and also the walking tours we give tourists around our neighborhood. Now, we are mostly depending on those projects for funding. Because from 2013, the Slovenian people stopped supporting us, and from that time, we have been working on the sewing project to generate more income. We also have a woman from Switzerland, Monika, who is helping us develop ideas for the designs of the sewing projects. She also helped us with a fundraising event in Switzerland, who supported us to pay the rent for some of the rooms at the center.
Do you have anything else to add for the publication’s readers? What is the most important thing you want people to remember about the center?
The most important thing to remember that here in the center, we are a group of women who are trying to support themselves and their families because we want to grow together. We do not want to have selfish business. We are trying to help women who did not have a chance to study or go to school to have better opportunities that will help them to survive and have better future for their children. When we started, we worked really hard to understand our rights and our kids’ rights. Now we are learning the skills that will let us be ourselves.
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