SPOPRWA

SPOPRWA LINGUISTIC GUIDE

SPOPRWA was formed in the 90’s when a collective of pro-active orientated paradigmers met to promote pro-active paradigms. So the Stakeholders for a Pro-active Orientated Paradigm in Rwanda (SPOPRWA) was formed by Emile Babu, Minega Isibo, Rama Isibo, and Oscar Kabbatende; with broad-based ambitions to foster dialogue and build capacity. Their organisation has grown rapidly to become one of the biggest capacity-builders and dialogue fosterers in the East and central African region. Rwanda is a nation on a language crossroads with English, French, Kinyarwanda, Swahili and a street mixture of all languages. Today when applying for a job in Rwanda you have to be multi-lingual, a minimum of 3 languages are expected and you have to be fluent enough to write reports in said language. So Rwandans have a striking quickness to just change tongue at any time; I can basically understand so many languages since I came to Rwanda, Lingala, Kikongo, Kirundi, Luganda, Runyankore, Rutoro, Rikiga. None of these are purely Rwandan but are spoken by the people who brought it back with them from exile, so even though were are one people we have so many cultures. If you don’t speak any of the major languages then you are unemployable; unless you speak Spoprwese, this cuts through all communication problems. Sometimes you see the most incompetent managers in charge of state companies simply because they speak fluent Spoprese, which is the original language of which Spoprwese is a dialect. Just like French has the Academy Francais, we have Spoprwa to protect that dialect and codify the syntax.


Rwanda is a nation in the throes of rapid development like a Larvae bursting out of its cocoon; the media is not that watchable or readable be it private or government. TVR is particularly poor, but with their budget it is understandable, but even with their low budget; which should make them imaginative, the opposite is true. They don’t make many programs and the ones they do make lack any vision or thought, like lobotomised monkeys had a creative meeting and threw shit at each other. If we had $20m to spare then we would have a world-class TV station but we don’t have enough hospitals and schools so we can’t justify a big station. That doesn’t excuse the shoddy standards on TVR, even simple time-keeping is too much for them. The 7:30 news comes on whenever they feel like it. The news on TVR is the reason why spoprwa was formed, they wouldn’t dare show any actual news lest it has bad consequences. They instead aim for safer ground, such a seminars and conferences; the life of a TVR reporter is not that complicated, wake up, brush teeth, go to Serena and then Novotel and see what conferences are going on, take 1 minute of footage with everyone looking as serious as they can, preferably taking notes and then back to the wife and kids via a cheap bar.

These seminars are the lifeblood of Spoprwa activity between New Times and TVR we have a veritable goldmine of Spoprwese. Looking at one now, “the workshop mainly dealt on the findings of an assessment on the prospects of mainstreaming gender in local government.” The journalist Joseph Mudingu deserves a gold medal for giving us that one. In a country where such language is a great advantage, Spoprwa is king, I can sit for hours and not understand a word. “We want to increase capacity, by initiating local-based initiatives which sensitise stakeholders in new pro-active paradigms.” The prevalence of NGO’s who are involved in joint projects with government departments has meant that this language has penetrated all levels of society. So we are going to ask for your help in compiling a Spoprwa dictionary in order to standardise the language. So I will start with a few words and you guys can expand it

Awareness – This is the state of being aware, awareness comes as a result of sensitisation. Once the masses are sensitised then they are aware, thus creating awareness.

Based – This is a suffix that can be placed on a word to make the speaker sound intelligent, Gender-based, Development-based, environment-based

Capacity-building – This is what happens as a result of sensitisation and awareness, capacity-building is the aim of most NGO’s, nobody ever mentions what the capacity is for because it isn’t important.

Developmental – This refers to anything in the process of development, it also refers to the mental state that development induces.

Efficiency – This needs to be increase in order to built capacity

Framework – This is necessary in order to create benchmarks to judge efficiency

Gender-based – This refers mostly projects or initiatives aimed at women

Holistic

Initiatives

Knowledge-based