Today we visited one of the farthest reaching Food Security Sites, Ruheru Parish (formerly Gatanda). It took us 2.5 hours to get there on very rough Rwandan roads.You even cross into Burundi for a brief period as you travel to this site. We did some Rwandan dancing for sure. We were met there by Pastor Eustache who is the Parish Pastor. The hospitality, as always was second to none. We had some lovely Rwandan tea and some snacks after our long drive!
After that we met with the INDAKEMWA Cooperative to see how they were doing and to give us an update on the area.
This is one of the sites that the Udder Project gave 12 goats and some maize seeds to get them started. We did that a few years ago. Currently, they have 27 goats!! This does not even include the goats that were sold. So, they are doing quite well. If you remember, the idea was to give 12 beneficiaries each a goat- then, when the goats have their first offspring, the kid goes to another beneficiary. The rotation of these goats is going well but we still have 23 beneficiaries needing goats.
They also have made some good profit off the maize seeds that were supplied by the Udder Project as well.
We heard some great testimonies from the beneficiaries about how the goats have made a big difference in their lives. One woman said that after she gave the first offspring of her goat to another beneficiary, her goat had two more kids. She sold those and that helped her in buying a small parcel of land for her son. Many are now able to get health insurance and pay school fees for their children.
The Cooperative has had a bit of a struggle this year however. They lost some of their Irish potato crop due to some bad seeds. In addition, they lost some of their members who left the group and took some of the savings with them. This was hard on them but, they are persevering and looking at ways to prevent these things from happening again in the future.
They are a determined group of 50 members now and know what they need to do to continue to succeed.
Overall, the area seems to be doing well, much better than the last time we visited.
After the talk with the Cooperative, we had a lovely lunch at the Pastor's house and then started the long, dusty and bumpy drive back to Kigeme.
All in all another great day!!
After that we met with the INDAKEMWA Cooperative to see how they were doing and to give us an update on the area.
This is one of the sites that the Udder Project gave 12 goats and some maize seeds to get them started. We did that a few years ago. Currently, they have 27 goats!! This does not even include the goats that were sold. So, they are doing quite well. If you remember, the idea was to give 12 beneficiaries each a goat- then, when the goats have their first offspring, the kid goes to another beneficiary. The rotation of these goats is going well but we still have 23 beneficiaries needing goats.
They also have made some good profit off the maize seeds that were supplied by the Udder Project as well.
We heard some great testimonies from the beneficiaries about how the goats have made a big difference in their lives. One woman said that after she gave the first offspring of her goat to another beneficiary, her goat had two more kids. She sold those and that helped her in buying a small parcel of land for her son. Many are now able to get health insurance and pay school fees for their children.
The Cooperative has had a bit of a struggle this year however. They lost some of their Irish potato crop due to some bad seeds. In addition, they lost some of their members who left the group and took some of the savings with them. This was hard on them but, they are persevering and looking at ways to prevent these things from happening again in the future.
They are a determined group of 50 members now and know what they need to do to continue to succeed.
Overall, the area seems to be doing well, much better than the last time we visited.
After the talk with the Cooperative, we had a lovely lunch at the Pastor's house and then started the long, dusty and bumpy drive back to Kigeme.
All in all another great day!!
The goat on the bottom left is the kid of one of the original goats given to members of this cooperative.
RSS Feed