Rwanda Nziza, (www.RWANDA-NZIZA.com)
INEZA COOPERATIVE is a sewing cooperative based in Kigali, Rwanda that produces high quality, hand-made bags, accessories, and home decor items. It is staffed by twenty-five women who produce and market hand-made goods for sale domestically and abroad. Started in 2006 by WE-ACTx—an international NGO that specializes in comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment for survivors of the genocide.
When WE-ACTx was founded in early 2004, the women of Ineza were among the organization’s most sick and impoverished patients. Since the cooperative’s inception, however, Ineza has provided both improved medical care for women and the tools for economic and social empowerment. Through its collective decision-making and small business model, Ineza provides its staff with a source of income as well as a physically and mentally rejuvenating sense of purpose. Since many of Ineza’s staff members are survivors of the 1994 Genocide, the cooperative also serves as a space for continued emotional healing from the trauma of mass murder and rape, physical injuries, loss of family members, and domestic violence.
By providing both emotional support and a means of financial independence, Ineza is a unique model of grass-roots economic development that produces quality of life gains on both a material and psychological level. Through in-house continuing education programs in design, sewing, management, computer skills, and marketing, Ineza staff members are constantly increasing their productive capacity and business savy.
INEZA COOPERATIVE is a member of the RWANDA FAIR TRADE ARTISAN’S ASSOCIATION which allows it to have access to the market either locally or internationally.
Génerose once had a husband, but he was killed by armed troops hostile to the village where they lived. She now struggles to feed their three children plus two more left to her when her sister died. Unable to buy a home, she rents a room for her brood and faces the attendant risks. The children do not attend school because Génerose cannot afford books and school supplies, let alone tuition. She attires herself in the most meager way, as can be seen in the photo.
There is no electricity in the village, so Génerose uses an old-fashioned Singer sewing machine powered with a foot pedal. The income earned from making clothes (and now baby booties) helps but is not sufficient to satisfy the appetites of her five children. The money earned from a pair of booties will buy one scant starchy meal for the family. It will buy a quarter of a chicken or a half-pound of meat, but these are luxuries.
A European visitor commented, “I have visited this project in the Congo, and I was above all impressed by the ladies` spirit and their inner strength under the most dire and dangerous circumstances in a violent country. This project is not about charity, it is about the dignity of work and ability to feed your family. My deep respect to the women of Bagira. And by the way, the booties they make are ever so beautiful.”
The Lutheran mission also runs a program for roughly 50 orphans from the village, inviting them to play once a week and offering them a robust meal.
COCOKI COOPERATIVE is a sewing cooperative of more than 40 talented artisan women in Kigali, Rwanda. The women of Cocoki have worked their way up from the most difficult of circumstances such as recovering from the 1994 genocide and now are role models and mentors across Rwanda. The cooperative business has grown tremendously by exporting its products to the US market, hiring more seamstresses, and then relocating to a larger facility.
COCOKI has been part of the RWANDA FAIR TRADE ARTISAN’S ASSOCIATION since 2010 where it’s been benefiting from connection with the local clientele and access to the international market.
Six years ago, Emilienne (on the left) and her husband struggled to feed their four children. In desperation Emilienne took classes offered by the Houston-based nonprofit Indego Africa. She learned to use a sewing machine, learned business skills, and even learned to use a computer.
She recruited friends, and they formed a small sewing cooperative — the Cocoki Cooperative. Cocoki now exports to American markets and is part of the Rwanda Fair Trade Artisans Association. More importantly, Emilienne now feeds her family and sends her children to school (at a cost of $10 per child every 3 months). Cocoki, together with the similarly organized Ineza Cooperative, sewed 200 pairs of baby booties for the Gendercide Awareness Project.
Gloria (on the right) is an entrepreneur in her early 20s. She created her own business (Glo Creations, glocreations.net) designing and manufacturing batik cloth. She now employs many people and is proud that she can bring jobs and income to her community. She supplied some of the cloth used to make baby booties. Always concerned to give back, Gloria now sponsors two impoverished children to attend school. One child has done so well that she pays extra money to send him to private school.
Both Gloria and Emilienne have been mentored by yet another nonprofit — the Peace Through Business Program of the Institute for the Economic Empowerment of Women, based in Oklahoma City. They came to Dallas for training, bringing a completed order of baby booties with them. Both women praised and thanked IEEW for the training they have received. They also praised the government of Rwanda — and even the police! — for protecting women, promoting women in government, and encouraging female enterprise. See their story in the video below.