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Home » Projects » Growing Fruit Trees in Rutunga

Growing Fruit Trees in Rutunga

2015 - 2017

Rutunga Fruit Trees

  • Trained 150 vulnerable women to grow fruit trees
  • The government recognises their project as a model farm
  • Cultural gender-barriers are broken – men help the project

Following one of the recommendations in an interim evaluation of the Aspire DFID funded agriculture project, Network for Africa decided to help the women diversify their agricultural produce.  A group of 89 women in Rutunga was given the land and the start-up costs to begin growing bananas and tamarillo plants.  The women were trained in how to prepare for, plant and grow their fruit trees. In many parts of Africa, men will not participate in agricultural work. However, we encouraged the local men to get involved, helping their wives and partners to prepare the land.   It was hard, physical work, but under the supervision of the agronomist all the trees were planted in good time for the rains.  Such was the success of this project that the fruit farm was designated a “model farm” by the local government authorities, and in 2016 it was opened up to another 61 women who were also trained and cultivated their own banana trees and tamarillo plants.  The local men also saw for themselves how they could contribute to a project that reaped rewards for their families, improving life for everyone.

Our Partner

Aspire is a Rwandan NGO based in Kigali. It provides training and support to women so that they can lift themselves and their families out of poverty.  Founded by social worker Peace Ruzage, Aspire was set up to help the large numbers of unemployed women in her neighbourhood living in extreme poverty.  She offered her veranda as a place for them to socialise and support each other.  Soon, 300 women attended her meetings, and Peace saw that poverty was only one aspect of disadvantage these women faced – they had also experienced rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence.  Furthermore, they weren’t aware of their rights, some were HIV+, couldn’t read or write having left school to work, and many exhibited signs of trauma/PTSD due to their experiences of abuse and/or the genocide.  During our partnership with Peace and Aspire, they devised and managed the projects above.

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With your financial support Network for Africa can give the counselling training needed to help resourceful and resilient community members leave the harmful legacy of conflict behind.

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Network for Africa UK

14 Saint Marys Street, Stamford
Lincolnshire PE9 2DF

Phone: 0203 951 0863
Email: information@network4africa.org

Network for Africa US

PO Box 6609
Charlottesville VA 22906

Email: information@network4africa.org

Registered Charity

Network for Africa is a charity registered in the UK - 1120932.

Network for Africa is a 501(c)(3) and our tax ID is 26-1502938.

Network for Africa is a charity registered in both the USA and the UK, but we use the spelling most commonly used in Africa on this website.

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