National Service and Self-Reliance
Senior 6 · General and Religious Studies
National Service and Self-Reliance
Lesson 3 of 4
24 min
On the last Saturday of the month, shops close, traffic thins, and across Rwanda people gather with hoes, machetes and wheelbarrows. In one village they dig the foundations of a classroom; in Kigali they clean drains and plant trees; elsewhere they repair a road washed out by the rains or build a house for a family that cannot afford one. This is umuganda, Rwanda's monthly community work, and it is the form of national service that almost every adult takes part in.
But umuganda is only one of several ways Rwandans serve their country. This lesson examines the main ones, starting with the law that organises umuganda.
Important
Source A: Law N° 53 of 2007 establishing Community Works in Rwanda (as published in the Official Gazette, 15 January 2008)
Article 2: "Community works is the gathering of efforts of many people in order for them to carry out a general public interest activity. Community works shall also aim at promoting development activities in the frame work of supporting national budget and to provide an opportunity for conviviality among people."
Article 3: "Every Rwandan of at least eighteen (18) years of age and who is not above sixty five (65) years, with the ability to work, shall have the obligation to perform community works."
Article 5: "No person shall be allowed to compensate for community work in cash or in kind."
Article 13: if the concluding meeting decides that a person who missed community works without a justified reason should be fined, the fine "shall not exceed five thousand Rwandan francs (Rwf 5.000)".
Definition
Umuganda: monthly community work in Rwanda, in which residents work together on a task of public interest and then meet to discuss local matters.
Community works supervising committee: the committee at each level, from the village to the nation, that plans, supervises and evaluates umuganda (Article 7).
Home-grown solution: a policy built from Rwandan culture and history to meet a present-day need, such as umuganda, itorero, imihigo and ubudehe.
Citizen outreach: work done by the defence and security forces for and with civilians, such as building homes, bridges and schools and giving free medical care.
The law gives umuganda three aims (Article 2): public-interest work, development that supports the national budget, and conviviality, that is, bringing neighbours together. The duty falls on able adults aged 18 to 65; older people may join if they wish, and foreigners living in Rwanda are encouraged to (Article 3). A person may not buy his or her way out by paying (Article 5), which keeps umuganda a shared duty rather than a tax on the poor. Figure 3 shows how each month is organised.
Compare this with the Forced Labour Convention you studied in the first lesson. Umuganda is short (at least three hours a month), its work must be "of general public interest", and the committee must consult the population before choosing the task (Article 8). Those features are what allow the law to treat it as a normal civic obligation rather than forced labour.
| Activity | Who serves | Typical work | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urugerero | Secondary-school leavers | Building homes for the elderly, roads, shelters; fighting stunting; awareness against genocide ideology | MINUBUMWE, 2025 (twelfth cohort) |
| Itorero | Groups from villages, schools, professions and the diaspora | Civic education in values, unity and leadership | MINUBUMWE (Itorero ry'Igihugu since 2007) |
| Defence and Security Citizen Outreach Programme | Rwanda Defence Force and Rwanda National Police, with partners | Homes, bridges, early childhood development centres, free medical care | Ministry of Defence: in 2024, 13 bridges, 31 homes, 15 ECD centres and free treatment for over 72,000 patients |
| Community health work | Community health workers chosen by their villages | Home visits, treating common childhood illnesses, referring patients | Ministry of Health community health programme |
| Volunteering | Youth volunteers, students' clubs, church and mosque groups | Community policing, helping vulnerable families, cleaning, tree planting | Organised locally |
The outreach programme began in 2009 as "Army Week". It was renamed the RDF Citizen Outreach Programme in 2018, because its work had grown well beyond a single week, and became the Defence and Security Citizen Outreach Programme in 2024.
Warning
Umuganda is not paid work, and it is not optional for adults. Students often call it "volunteering". Under Law N° 53 of 2007 it is an obligation for able Rwandans aged 18 to 65, and it cannot be replaced by money (Article 5). Volunteering is the activities people choose freely on top of it.
Tip
Activity, actor, evidence. To answer "describe the activities through which national service is done in Rwanda", name the activity, who does it and one piece of evidence of what it achieved. Three well-supported activities score better than eight bare names.
Important
Discuss. Article 11 asks each committee to report the "monetary value" of umuganda. What can a money figure show about community work, and what can it not show? Think about the meeting after the work and the aim of conviviality in Article 2.
News Central TV: "Rwanda's Umuganda Community Work Resumes After Years", a news report on the return of monthly community work after its suspension during the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch for the kinds of work done and who takes part.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: Figure 3, the table, the analysis and the exercises.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
