Community Based Rehabilitation ( CBR) Programme stakeholders in Rwanda committed to doing more to contribute to its implementation.

Community Based Rehabilitation ( CBR) Programme stakeholders in Rwanda made this commitment in a meeting convened by the National Union of Disability Organizations in Rwanda, NUDOR, on July 21, 2020 at Remera in Kigali, in partnership with Liliane Foundation.

In his opening remarks, NUDOR chairperson , Mr. BIZMIMANA Dominique has made an emphasis on the objective of the meeting which was discussing on strategies to strengthen the collaboration between key stakeholders in CBR for their support to the program.
Mr. TUYIZERE Oswald , the Director of Socio economic empowerment Unit in National Council of Persons with disabilities , has reminded that , the Government of Rwanda through MINALOC and NCPD initiated the CBR Programme to tackle issues affecting persons with disabilities at community level, and called upon the stakeholders to refer to CBR Guidelines from the planning, implementation and impact evaluation.

Mr. TWAGIRIMANA Eugene, CBR Programme Coordinator in NUDOR made a brief presentation on CBR as iplemented by NUDOR Partnership with Lilian Foundation since 2016 while before that period the programme was coordinated by Bernardines Sisters. He highlighted the core strategy employed in the work of the Lilliane foundation which is Child Empowerment, meaning increasing the children’s and youngsters personal, social, educational and economic strengths to become active agents of change in their own communities through Child Development.
Stakeholders committed to doing more for CBR implementation
After the different presentations and open discussions, stakeholders who participated to the meeting committed to improving their role in implementing this program.

Mr UWISHEMA Valentin, Customer and benefits supervisor at Rwandair said; “Rwandair has been working with disability organizations and will continue to do so by supporting in a way or another bit financial or other means, to help children with disabilities to grow with better future life”.
on the other side Mr. Emmanuel MUNYAMPETA from National Early Childhood Development Program, NECDP reported: ‘’We are going to engage different stakeholders, we will meet different development partners in health, education, child protection, social economic empowerment, in different domains . We will engage all of them especially to empower community members”.

Dr. Prince Bosco KANANI , the Director of Rwanda Catholic health services in Caritas Rwanda said ;”Caritas Rwanda is viable as one owning a big portion of the health services among others as “We have hospitals, health facilities, so I think for the technical group in rehabilitation mentioned in discussions, we are ready to support because we have experience”.
Mrs. BATESI Teddy, Human resources management officer at Rwanda social security Board , RSSB , made a comment: ‘’ I can advocate for you in RSSB that that children and youth with disability can be treated in a special way and the whole RSSB staf should also advocate for them to the government for policy change”.

Other than the personal commitments, the entire meeting adopted the following recommendations;

1. Participants have called upon/reminded to integrate CBR in planning aligning their missions and visions to ensure they are contributing to the program without necessarily investing money ( for instance issues of addressing negative mindset can be addressed without money)
2. NCPD and other partners in CBR , to advocate for the committees to be structured at village level for more community involvement and ensure PWDs are part of the committees; and make a follow up of the functionality of these committees;
3. Partners continue strengthening their collaboration through joint advocacy as any single organization cannot pretend implement CBR ; focus in community involvement , using available resources;
4. Continue building the Pos capacities so that they can be able to think about the early child development in collaboration with NECDP; empowering the community on early disability detection, response and referral;
5. NUDOR to build synergy within its programs and projects as much is done in line with CBR ; this is can be done through capacity building, involvement of Pos within livelihood program at grassroots level;
6. NUDOR programs coordinators and projects managers to participate to the next CBR stakeholders sharing meeting to enhance knowledge on CBR;
7. NUDOR to continue working with partners in raising awareness of the community to respect to construction standards for more accessibility to persons with disabilities;
8. Partners in CBR to strengthen reporting mechanisms to ensure the Ministry of health , MINEDUC, MINALOC and other Social cluster members have data from the work we do in CBR;
9. When thinking about transition from CBR to CBID, people should first appreciate what has been done since many years independently to CBR matrix ; as much has been within disability movement and other partners for the inclusion of PWDs ;
10. Early CD to be taken as holistic approach in stakeholders interventions and engaging other stakeholders;
    In his closing remarks Mr. BIZIMANA Dominique, NUDOR Chairperson, thanked once again the participants and committed that ; as way forward , NUDOR is organizing an evening session ( working dinner ) that will be an opportunity to thank all partners that have contributing in different ways to its work in CBR and continue building collaboration