Mumeya Leader Polina Usabyeneza Inspires Nyange Residents

Polina Usabyeneza is an experienced PICO Rwanda leader from Mumeya. Polina visited Nyange and offered testimony about her experience with community organizing in Mumeya:

“I was born in 1978 in Mumeya, and I grew up without a clinic, a school or a road nearby our villages! I got married and had three children –  two of them were delivered at home, and one on the road on the way to the Kibungo hospital. It was difficult for me to be carried on a stretcher by a group of men for about three hours while I was about to deliver a child. I had pain and I knew that I was in danger with my unborn child. As the pain went on, I asked the men to put me down near the road under the banana trees. As soon as I was taken from their shoulders, I delivered a baby boy! Imagine having all these men watching me deliver a baby near the road! It was a very hard experience, but I thanked God for delivering the baby safely.  We returned home, and life without a clinic continued. We never believed that we would have clinic.

When Pastor John started to train us about community organizing, it took us time to understand what we could do with one-to-one conversations. But as time went on, the way we saw things changed. We held research meetings with the mayor, and the Minister of Health. We started to be confident, we knew what we wanted and learned that nobody was likely to come to our rescue. I encourage you to realize it is up to each of us to stand up, learn what you want to be, come together as a community, and learn how to ask strategic questions that enable you to reach your goals.

I want to tell you that if we weren’t committed to learn how to do the one-to-one conversations, we wouldn’t have built that clinic. You need to take the initiative to demonstrate that you’re capable of challenging poverty and ignorance, and prove to others that they are wrong about what you are able to do.  You can learn and apply what you learn to bring development to Nyange”