Following excited Rwandans in the diaspora over different social media for Career Day, at least 200 Rwandan in the Diaspora turned up for the first edition of Career day in Kigali.
Career day was organized by Jobs in Rwanda Ltd in collaboration with Wakening Abilities for the Future (WAF), a Belgian based association of Rwandan Young Professionals.
According to Grace Nyinawumuntu one of the organizers the main objective of career day is to discuss about career perspectives in Rwanda and analyze how professional and knowledge skills of members of Diaspora and others in the country could be exploited in consultancy contracts.
Over 35 companies participated in a one-day event to share their business experience in Rwanda as their representative presented their paper to the attentively listening Rwandans in the diaspora.
This follows a two days National Dialogue where Rwandans in the Diaspora participated in large number and asked to begin investing and taxing back in their country as way of increasing Rwandan economy in order to stop over dependence syndrome.
Rwanda has been one of the fast growing economies in Africa where her President Paul Kagame has been at the fore front to fight dependence.
International community has hailed Rwanda for her effective use of aid hence becoming an example to many developing countries.
In the discussions that attracted over five hundred participants in the career day that took place at Serena Hotel, there is a need to bridge skills and knowledge gap and a number of members of Diaspora presented their CV’s to the prosepective employers that included Telecom firms and banks.
According to Parfait Gahamanyi Director General of the Diaspora Directorate the event is expected to be hosted annually.
“We believe Rwandans in Diaspora can play an important role in development of this nation,” Gahamanyi says.
Gahamanyi says this idea came from Rwandans in the Diaspora themselves and government supported it.
According to Yvette Umutoni, the Human Resource Director at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), the event was fruitful with many showing interest in returning to contribute their skills in Rwanda’s job market.
“We should have had this three or four year ago because it has really brought the Diaspora under one roof in terms of skills and opportunities for both potential employers and potential employees. We think next year it will be much better,” Umutoni said.
In recent presentation of government’s plan to the parliament by Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi, government vowed to create 200,000 jobs annually so as to solve the problem of unemployment in the country.
The unemployment rate in Rwanda was last reported at 30 percent in 2008.
Worldwide 2010 estimates indicated that unemployment was at 8.7% and 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries or developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment.
This year it has been reported that more than 200 million people globally are out of work, a record high, as almost two-thirds of advanced economies and half of developing countries are experiencing a slowdown in employment growth.
ENDS
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