Diary from Rwanda: Day Four

We are all co-creating the Universe. What you and I are becoming the World is becoming.—Teilhard de Chardin, 17th century Jesuit priest and philosopher

On day four of our trip, we visit a valley in Kayonza, a province about two hours north of Kigali, and home to Women for Women International’s Agribusiness Center. The pictures our group has seen of the Agribusiness center do not do this valley, rich in sustainable crop soil, justice. Think Gregory Peck in How Green Was My Valley or Anne of Green Gables to approximate its beauty. The land of the valley, forty hectares in size, was donated in part by the district of Kayonza to Women for Women International to help launch their Commercial Integrated Farming Initiative (CIFI). CIFI will provide women training in sustainable farming and a chance to sell the produce they harvest. Pineapple will be the first crop planted here because there is high demand and it grows quickly. Possible future crops include passion fruit, strawberries, and other high-yield, short-cycle crops.

Grace Fiysis is Women for Women International’s Agribusiness specialist. Prior to this post, she worked for the IFC World Bank. Grace’s vision is that at least 70 percent of the women who are trained through CIFI will be employed as sustainable commercial farmers. “They will earn their living in a such a way that leaves the environment healthy for the next generation,” she says.

Initially, there will be ten trainers who have graduated from a WFW program who will learn farming techniques in this valley. The trainers will then teach up to one thousand women a year sustainable farming techniques. Later, in their own communities, they will be equipped to develop cooperative farming initiatives.

The women who are trained through CIFI, like all women who attend WFW programs, will be among the most socially vulnerable and excluded women. They will include genocide victims and wives of perpetrators, planting together, side by side. The concept is staggering: could you harvest pineapples with a woman whose husband had killed your child? For Rwanda to move forward, this is what it must ask of its people every day.