Felicien Simpunga grew up in the Ruhango district of Rwanda, where life and making a living revolved around agriculture. While he grows other crops such as beans and sweet potatoes for home use, Felicien decided to focus on cassava to earn an income after attending a training course delivered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2005. Read more

Alvera Nyiransengimana, a mother of three children received a dairy goat, a pig, and the training and inputs needed to build a kitchen garden, through the Joint One UN nutrition Project “Accelerating stunting reduction amongst under-two children in Rwanda” to fight malnutrition and accelerate the reduction of stunting. Through this garden she and her family now have access to fresh, nutritious vegetables such as cabbages, onions, carrots, Amaranth, spinach, mushrooms, and eggplant every day, which protects her family from diseases. She is now able to prepare a balanced diet of vegetables, potatoes, beans, and ground nuts. And get manure from the animals to apply to my garden and get increased productivity. Her children are no longer in the red line indicating malnutrition.

“Women” and “fishing” are two words that would not have been used together in the same sentence a few years ago in Rwanda. It has been a long-held belief in Rwanda that fishing is not for women – it is a man’s occupation. Women have mostly embraced this thinking as well, but a few brave women from Nkombo, an island on Lake Kivu in the Rusizi District, are determined to prove that what a man can do, a woman can do too.

Maria Mukamana is engaged in grafting and seed multiplication of fruit trees and trees in her rural area in Nyagisozi sector, Nyaruguru district. This kind of work was long considered by the rural women to be a man’s work and for those who had gone to school. The mother of three children of ages between 25 years and 4 years old, multiplies and grafts seeds of Eucalyptus, Pawpaw, Avocado, mango, and tree tomato. Her nursery beds now have about 120 000 fruit and tree seedlings.