Kigali – 8 October 2015: Rwanda joins the international community in celebrating World Post Day on 9th October, 2015.

The purpose of World Post Day is to create awareness of the role of the postal sector in people’s and businesses’ everyday lives and its contribution to the social and economic development of countries. The celebration encourages UPU member countries, including Rwanda, to undertake programme activities aimed at generating a broader awareness of their Post’s role and activities among the public and media on a national scale.

The World Post Day 2015 theme is “Importance of change for the postal sector to better meet the needs of governments and citizens”. This is to show the commitment of the postal operators to paradigm and status shift as posts are an integral part of the increasingly digital world. In fact, Postal services are not standing idly on the sidelines as they evolve and play their role in an era of new information and communication technologies, mobile telephones and the Internet.

In his 2015 message about the World Postal Day, Mr Bishar Abdirahman Hussein, Director General of Universal Postal Union emphasized on innovation, integration and inclusion that are the key drivers for the future of the Post, urging posts to take the challenges they face ‘’as opportunities to innovate and establish new market segments, understanding that a faster and more efficient communication medium is actually what the Post needs in order to build a new business value chain’’.

Reflecting on the importance of the World Postal Day, the Director General of the National Post Office, Mr. Célestin KAYITARE, said that ‘’this day gives us a moment to stop and ask ourselves if we are fulfilling our mandate as we should and look for innovative ways to meet the needs of our clients while ensuring continued growth of our operations’’ .

In Rwanda, the commemorative activities will be held on Friday October 9, 2015 at the National Post Office Head Office at Muhima -Kigali City, among which there is:

• Organisation of an ‘’Open - Post - Day’’

This is an opportunity to show to our customers how the services offered to them are produced. We will offer them a guided tour of the back office services such as: letter sorting, treatment of registered mails, parcel handling, mail tracking and tracing, etc..

• Guided Tour for young students

The guests for this event are the students from Kigali City Secondary Schools in the age group of 12 to 15 years. They will have an opportunity to ask questions related to the postal service in Rwanda and elsewhere.

• Press Conference

The press conference will be hosted by the Director General of the National Post Office and will discuss the strategic orientations as well as the restructuring process of National Post Office.

• Conviviality –‘’Ubusabane’’ of the National Post Office workers

This function will be held at MUHAZI Beach on Saturday 10th October 2015 and will be a great occasion to reflect critically on the services the staff of the Post Office provide to the public and renew their commitment to improved service delivery.
World Post Day is celebrated annually on 9 October.

It marks the creation of the Universal Postal Union on 9 October 1874, during the first Congress held in Berne, Switzerland, and invites UPU member countries and all postal stakeholders to celebrate postal services as a valuable public service that contributes to the social and economic development of countries. It was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress held in Tokyo, Japan, in 1969.