NWC meeting

On Sunday, 29th of April, we were present on one of the NWC's bimonthly meetings. We finally met almost all the members of the Centre. After a short round of introductions on English and reports on the study visit to a women's organisation called Sunny Skies in Uganda, things got pretty intense, although on Kinyarwanda. It seems one of the main points of disagreement on the meeting was the ownership of the car. NWC owns a Toyota RAV4 Crossover SUV, with 4-wheel drive, which was a gift from foreign donors. Except for the NWC needs, the car is also rented and is one of the sources of income for the Centre. Some of the members suggest selling the car, while others strongly oppose it. The problem is that there is no written proof from the past year on how often the car was rented, to whom and at which amount. Also, nobody took special care on the condition the car was in. The result is that today the value of the car is 3.5 million Rwandan Francs (originally it was 6 million RWF). Other points of disagreement were access to one of the bank accounts the Centre owns. The Centre has two bank accounts – one is for the centre itself, the other for incomes coming from community-based tourism. Apparently, access to the account was one of the points of disputes.  We were quite satisfied after the meeting, since we got to understand the social dynamics of the groups, the way they work and function and some of the horizontal differentiation. Bringing things out in the open in the meetings, although intense at moments, is a lot more productive way of resolving unsolved issues and problems. Especially since we were told that the previous NWC's president, kept all the information and decisions to herself, without consulting the group. Marko