46 • Women in Coffee • C&CI May 2012
Rwandan women find empowerment through coffee
financial resources to care for their children or make a living in a country plagued by poverty.
O However, at the Maraba coffee co-oper-
ative in the southern district of Butare, a focus on reconciliation combined with the efforts of several international coffee com- panies has helped the women there get back on the road recovery and social and economic empowerment. Having witnessed her husband killed in
what became known as the Simbi Church Massacre in the early days of the genocide in April 1994, Veneranda Mukakalega, 51, fled the country with her four children, of whom one was an infant at the time and another a two year old toddler. After an extended period in refugee
camps near the border with Burundi, Veneranda returned to her native village near the village of Maraba, facing an uncertain future. "After the genocide, the situation here was very difficult, especially for the women, because you cannot get any help," she explained.
Half a million widowed
Maraba is located in the southern province of Butare, a province that saw some of the worst atrocities. As many as 250,000 died in the coffee-producing hills. As one of Rwanda’s half a million wid-
ows, Veneranda had no idea how she would survive, and how she would be able to take care of the children. Her small coffee farm was in decay. It took an extraordinary effort to get through the first, most difficult years, rebuilding the farm and raising four children all by her- self. Today she can’t remember how she managed, except that it was a daily struggle to get one basic meal on the table every day. Many days there would only be a bit of corn-porridge to go around. School fees were something she couldn’t even consider. Five years after the genocide, things had
Esperance Nyirahabimana says joining the
co-op means that she no longer depends on a man for her livelihood
started to improve. Local residents had formed an association and, being a widow, Veneranda was able to join as the sole caretaker of her farm. "The men at the co-op are the ones who
receive the money, but as a widow, I have been able to join the co-op and I have been able to have my own income," she explained.
Women able to join co-ops themselves
According to traditional family structures in Rwanda, it was always the husband who becomes a member of a co-op and, as the title holder, he is the one who is paid, regardless of how much his wife might have participated in the hard manual labour required to get a coffee farm to pro- duce a healthy harvest. Two years later the association, which had started with about 300 growers, was
turned into the Maraba Coffee Growers Co- operative, and life finally started to improve for Veneranda and hundreds of other women in similar conditions. Today the co- op has some 1,350 members, of which almost 40 per cent are women, most of them widows from the genocide. "The economic situation here is difficult
for the women," said Uwera Gema, 58, another woman producer member of the Maraba co-op. "It’s difficult to get money to pay for school fees, or clothing, but with the co-op I have been able to get my own income. Now, I can pay for the children’s school and medical service." Uwera, a mother of eight children, was
one of the founding members of the co-op. Today, she has 1,200 coffee trees. She explained that the women who have joined the co-op have seen their social status, not just their incomes, improve. "Compared to before, I am able to speak like a man; a woman can have her own activity, her own income, so the situation is now consider- ably better now."
Co-op finds markets in UK and US
The co-op soon came to the attention of companies in consuming countries, and Union Coffee Roasters in the UK now sells Maraba coffee through more than 350 Sainsbury’s supermarkets. Maraba coffee is also sold by Louisiana-based Community Coffee in the US. From the start, reconciliation was one of
the primary goals behind the formation of the Maraba co-op, formally known by its name in the local Kinyarwanda language as Abahuzamugambi ba Kawa, which means "those who work together for a common goal."
bservers estimate that 500,000 women were widowed by the genocide, and left with little help or
As many as 1 million people were killed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, many in the East African country’s coffee communities
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52