A cup of coffee with community

From Wrayzene!

Today we began our day with a small cup of coffee and a large introduction to community. We visited Sustainable Harvest, which is a NGO operating as part of a well-organized Public Private Partnership in Rwanda. 85% of Rwandans work in the agricultural sector, and coffee (along with tea) is a major focus of life in rural Rwanda.  Funded by an initial grant of 2.5 million USD from Bloomberg's philanthropic organization, Sustainable Harvest empowers women at every stage of coffee production:  access to land, growing, harvesting, washing, selling, and even cupping and roasting!  Silvere, the business manager, told us about the ways the women learn how to use technology to find buyers so they do not have to sell to a middle man.  Sustainable Harvest employs 15,000 women and has helped grow their income by an unbelievable 4 million%!  With each bean and flavor, you have certain ways in order to achieve the various flavors they want:  sweet or robust. In the South of Rwanda, the land is more hilly versus the land in Western Rwanda being more flat. All of the education and training helps put women in the driver's seat of their economic future.  It also gives them a spot in the community.  And, community is a central feature of Rwandan life, and we noticed this right away.  

After meeting with Sustainable Harvest, we traveled a bit outside of Kigali to meet with the leaders of Prisoner Fellowship of Rwanda, a Christian based non-profit that has been working for 20 years to bring reconciliation.  The Bishop who started it got the idea after losing 45 members of his family in the genocide.  He fasted for three days until he came up with a way to be helpful.  Their office was not fancy, but they run many programs and have very deep roots in the community.  The three goals are transformation, redemption, and unity.  All of their work begins with the idea "heal me and I heal you" (mvura nkuvure) and they do this through prison outreach, community based socio-therapy, and reconciliation villages. After talking with him for an hour, we traveled even further away from Kigali to visit with about 20 members of a reconciliation village.  

In this meeting we were allowed  to hear the stories of these people and their journey of forgiveness. The leader of the community was a genocidaire who told his story of growing up in a society focused completely on "us versus them."  This idea was spread through any and every way of life: religion, gatherings, schools, even churches. He was responsible for killing 25 people and he now lives with some of the survivors whose families he destroyed. After we hear his story, we heard from Tutsis who lost members of their family and their stories of learning how to forgive and move on.  Most of them stressed how they could not forgive themselves for their own (smaller) crimes if they could not find a way to forgive the people who committed the worst crimes.  For all of them, it started at interpersonal level.   The members of the village live together, work together, and feel a great sense of responsibility for their shared future.  They acknowledged that some former perpetrators still have hatred in their hearts, but these people work really hard to find peace.  They meet once a month as a whole village.  While we were there, kids came around.  The kids were very happy and joyous and the elders explained that the children are growing up with the genocide as a big part of their stories--no one tries to hide it.  

A huge part that I took out of this would be the Rwandan community and how they work together instead of separate. At both places today, we saw the ways the Rwandan community is ONE.   Their unity is amazing. These two interactions we had today show how people have grown from their differences.  They connected and found ways to grow together as one.

Sustainable Harvest

SH Team!

Reconciliation Village

Bishop Gashagazu, founder

the children of the village really loved our visit!  We had to check the bus for stow-aways ;)

every Rwandan woman knows how to weave baskets; it was meditative to watch them work as we all sat together and talked

on left, a victim.  on right, a perpetrator and the leader of the village
(so chosen for his integrity and commitment to service, faith, and redemption).

it was getting dark as we left, but I forgot my flash! blurry, but a keeper all the same.