COW PROGRAM: Cow Donation Ceremony 2022 in Kingi

This year, SACOLA gratefully received additional funding from Charlette Adams and immediately prepared a cow donation ceremony in one of the villages in Kinigi. 25th September 2022, 14 additional cows were ready to be donated to local women. SACOLA’s chairman, Pierre Célestin NSENGIYUMVA gathered local villagers into the community centre.

After the briefing, SACOLA’s members lead the local women recipients off to meet these cows. 14 cows stand in a row and were hitched onto trees (Fig 2). One-by-one, each local woman picked a letter, on which the cow's name can be found, and each cow was allocated to its belonger. In spite of the economic hardships created by COVID-19, SACOLA members and Sweet Charlette are determined to continue to bless and uplift the lives of women in the Kinigi region.

Fig 2 A row of cows hitch on trees.

Finally, SACOLA chairman, Pierre Célestin NSENGIYUMVA, manager of the Governor's Camp Sabinyo Lodge, Michael Hughes, SACOLA international volunteer, Yu-Feng HO have a group picture with a local villager and her received cow, as the end of this invaluable ceremony (Fig 3).

Fig. 3 A group picture of the representative of local villagers, SACOLA, international volunteer and Governor's Camp Sabinyo

SACOLA welcomes our new volunteer after COVID-19

Recovering from the pandemic, SACOLA welcomes the first volunteer, Yu-Feng Ho, from Taiwan. Yu-Feng has a background of agriculture and environmental management. He used to study Agronomy, Bachelor of Science at National Taiwan University (Taiwan) and Environment and Resource Management, Master of Science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

He brings us skills and tips for managing projects and generates some value and ideas. He stays with us for 6 weeks and we are glad to host him in Rwanda. Every work that has been done benefits the local communities.

School Dining Room

SACOLA Continue to improve the school experience for students. GS NYANGE School did not have a dining room for students students, SACOLA supported the school by constructing the dining room shown below.

Dining room at G.S.Nyange

CONSTRUCTION OF A HOUSE TO VULNERABLE PERSON

The beneficiary of this house is the person who was given the cow by SACOLA and reached the highest profitability. This house is to encourage her for a better future and as an example to others in the community.

A old house where vulnerable locals in Kinigi live in.

SACOLA’s member visits the new, complete house with locals

Avocado Trees

During this year (2021-2022) SACOLA has produced 10,000 avocado trees to be distributed to the community and schools around the Rwanda Volcanoes National Park. The purpose was to help fight against malnutrition among children.

Distributing Trees to the community

Distributing trees to schools

HOUSING SURVIVORS

This is one of four houses constructed by SACOLA in favour of genocide survivors in KINIGI and NYANGE sectors whose houses were very old.

SACOLA built the new ones with tanks to collect rain water for a ready supply of water.

House showing rainwater tank

Joselyne tells how SACOLA helped her and how she wants to make a change.

The impact of SACOLA on studying youth

Felicien SEBAHIRE is born in Rwanda, Musanze district, in a very poor family with only a mother who took care of him and his siblings. His childhood were very miserable. Up to 2013 his family lived in a poor shelter and sometimes they even used to shift to their neighbours houses during rainy seasons, because the conditions were so poor. 

He studied at three different primary schools and did his high school in Musanze. He did his bachelors of science in civil engineering at National University of Rwanda, his Masters in Water and Sanitation at International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering in Burkina Faso and currently he is doing his PhD in hydrology and water resources engineering with specialisation in water supply and sanitation at Nelson Mandela – African Institution of Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania. To accomplish all of this Felicien was supported by many organisations including SACOLA. He started to get assistance from SACOLA in 2011, when he was about to drop out from university because of financial problems

After his graduation in 2013, as a civil engineer, he intervened  in construction projects and worked as a high school technical teacher in his own community. After getting his PhD he wants to use his knowledge in his daily life to motivate others. He has been trained in so many things whether socially or technologically and he wants to put them into application. He wants to inspire young people in his hometown to do something with their lives. 

His future is now good and very promising. Not only for himself, but for his community. He wants to be a problem solver and hopefully even worldwide. To be a problem solver means he can now turn problems into solutions. For example he is currently doing a research on how to turn organic wastes into biogas (energy), fertiliser, construction materials and other products.

In his own words he said without the help of SACOLA he would have dropped out from his university studies. He wouldn’t have travelled abroad to gain advanced trainings and simply could not expect a bright future. Other friends in his community were also helped by SACOLA. Apart from many students studying in University of Rwanda, others went to universities in China, Ethiopia, Tanzania and USA.

Felicien is very grateful for the SACOLA help. Not only for himself, but also for the population living around Sabyinyo Volcano. He is very happy to see the positive impact in the community in community development, natural resource and biodiversity conservation, business startups, infrastructure development, good governance, promoting cultural tourism, education and agriculture. 

In the following video his sister Agnes, who also had the change to study, is explaining some more. 

SACOLA celebrates Labour Day with our hard working employees

On Labour Day, May 1st, all of SACOLA’s employees gathered for lunch at Fatima hotel to look back and celebrate our achievements this year. We thank all of our employees for their contribution, with special thanks to Peruth who the team chose as their employee of the year.

SACOLA welcomes our new volunteer to Kinigi

SACOLA welcomes our new volunteer to Rwanda, Meenal Patel. She joins us from London, England where she was working in the financial services industry for 12 years. Meenal brings both financial and business skills and will be working with our Women Empowerment program. She graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science with a Bachelors degree in Economics. She will be working with us for 4 weeks. We are excited to have her working alongside us and look forward to seeing her impact. Most welcome!