CANDIDATURE UPDATES IFMSA MARCH MEETING 2020 – RWANDA
Dear NMOs, It is now ten months since we began the journey of preparations to host the marvelous IFMSA General Assembly MM2020. A lot has been done all along by our core organizing committee, with a dedication and passion to bring IFMSA to the country of a thousand hills, Rwanda. Volunteer spirit and motivation lying deep in our NMO’s heart, love and support from IFMSA NMOs made our journey smooth and friendly. As you may have already seen, we submitted our candidature to host the IFMSA MM2020. Since the submission, our team kept working to provide IFMSA with the best at MM2020 once we get NMOs’ trust to host you all. It is in this line that we would like to summarize the updates of the work on our submitted candidature. If you have not yet had a chance to read our candidature, you can find the general information here: 69th IFMSA March Meeting 2020 Host Candidature - Rwanda.
GENERAL: ● ● ●
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We are pleased to inform you that we have now secured and confirmed with twelve partners so far. Our MM2020 website is now in development, we are in contact with the same company which developed the MM2018 and AM2018 website. As we promised you in our candidature, we are pleased to inform you that we have been able to reduce our preliminary registration fees subsequently to securing funding from the government of Rwanda (see letter of support annex1 letter no2 below) After a travel discount from our national airline for MM2020 participants, we are exploring even one more airline to cover a broad range of regions, making your travel to Rwanda even easier. We have sent to all NMOs an Inputs collection form to our candidature. If you would like to share your views and questions with us, you can fill in this form We also invite you to like our Facebook page!
LOCATION & VENUE: ●
The maximum has been done before our candidature submission. The Opening Ceremony will be held at the Kigali Convention Center (KCC) and the PreGA and GA at the Golden Tulip Hotel. The hotel is located in a green and quiet location and is very specialized in hosting all kinds of conferences. ✓ You can find more information about the venue here
CANDIDATURE UPDATES ●
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A preliminary contract has been made for the GA and PreGA hotel before our candidature submission. It will include accommodation, 3 meals/day, session rooms and the majority of social programs We have visited the venue 6 times after our candidature submission, to explore how fully we can set the venue and best use the big space that the venue offers. We are in close contact with the management of the hotel as we keep updating each other.
TRANSPORTATION: ● ● ● ● ●
As mentioned in our candidature, there will be a 15% discount for flights to Kigali during the PreGA and GA period with RwandAir. We are in contact with Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines for further discounts, covering areas where RwandAir does not operate directly. All Necessary local transportation will be provided by the OC during the PreGa, GA, and PostGA (Airport-Venues-Airport). We will be providing a free post tour visit at the Genocide memorial museum with everything covered by the OC including the transportation; We would like to inform you that in addition to the existing Kigali International Airport, a new Airport (BUGESERA International Airport) which is under construction has been announced to have been finished by January 2020. This new Airport is intended to be used by the Heads of states attending the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting 2020 confirmed to be happening in Rwanda February 2020. We may also be able to use the second Airport (We will keep you updated if we are confirmed to be in Rwanda 2020).
For more information regarding accessing Rwanda check the Transportation details in our candidature 69th IFMSA March Meeting 2020 Host Candidature - Rwanda
VISA ON ARRIVAL FOR EVERYONE ●
We have been in close contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that we can maximize NMOs’ ability to acquire visas. The normal conference visa (T6) is valid for 30 days. By holding your MM2020 invitation letter, you will all be able to get your visa on arrival at your point of entry.
For more information regarding the streamlined Rwanda Visa, check our candidature: Visa detail
FINANCE & SPONSORSHIP ● ●
We have initially designed our budget with the least possible income from registration fees. We had minimized our fundraising expectation to 12,750€, our detailed financial plan can be found Here
CANDIDATURE UPDATES ●
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After meeting 5 ministers (from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth and ICT, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Family and Gender Promotion), if we get elected, the government will sponsor the event with 50,000 USD equivalent to approximately 44,000€ through Rwanda Convention Bureau (RCB). Confirmed funds can be found on the supporting letter bellow, annex 1. We also have additional pending contributors: WHO country office, UNFPA country office, Partners in Health, Rwanda Medical Association, Rwanda Development Board and SDG center for Africa. With funding, we have aimed to organize a cheap GA for all NMOs. Our financial team has been able to reduce the registration fees for the GA, and PreGA Trainers. New reduced registration fees will be sent out before the March Meeting 2019 Slovenia. If we are elected, we will immediately present our partners to the IFMSA EB for evaluation to make sure they are aligned with IFMSA Ethical Flamework on Fundraising.
POST-GA ● ● ●
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We are already working with the best local tourism agency, designing the PostGA packages proposal. We will provide multiple options from one day to four days packages ending at everyone’s departure Airport or In Kigali City. Through Rwanda Development board we are working on availing PostGA tours discount. (It is by default that the visits at certain sites by recognized conference attendees receive a certain percentage of discount). All Tours will be coordinated by a specialized tourism agency.
We will be very happy to receive your input via the input collection form we shared, or send us all your questions at this email address chair@mm2020rwanda.com, we would love to include answers in our candidature presentation.
Prepared by the Core OC.
Annexes..
Annex 1
Annex 2
Annex 3