Rwanda
Beauty of Rwanda contacted the ONE Blog through Twitter, and we were intrigued by their beautiful products on their website. Here’s their amazing story:
The hardworking men and women of Rwanda inspired Salha Kaitesi to start her business, Beauty of Rwanda. She came across basket weavers in Rwanda and after talking with them, and she knew they were the ones she wanted to help out the most.
Basket weaving is a skill that many Rwandese women have, passed from one generation to the next. The women are survivors of the Rwandan genocide; and Hutu and Tutsi women have put their differences aside and are weaving baskets to improve their lives and those of their children.
Beauty of Rwanda empowers Rwandese women by selling their handmade crafts. It is not charity, but does promote fair trade. The weavers in rural Rwanda are facing poverty and Beauty of Rwanda is helping them to overcome that.
The women are the bread winners of their families because either their husbands were killed during the genocide or are in prison for the crimes they committed during the genocide. Some are living with HIV and need the income in order to buy essential medicine. Beauty of Rwanda’s aim is to promote socio-economic well-being of vulnerable groups in Rwanda.
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President Kagame at a youth rally
Earlier this week, the Senate passed the United States-Rwanda Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). This is the first BIT concluded between the United States and a sub-Saharan African country since 1998. This BIT was initiated by former President George W. Bush and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in 2008 and has been waiting for Senate action since then.
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Could Rwanda become a hot travel destination like Italy, the Bahamas and Thailand? Well, it’s certainly on its way. People from all over the world are flocking to Rwanda for their award-winning gorilla trekking tours, national parks, cultural activities and bird-watching.
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Samuel Gatembeyi, a small farmer from east Rwanda, is in Washington to urge US lawmakers to support a soil improvement program that has increased his food production by sixfold. He was kind enough to talk to ONE about life on the farm, his work ethic and agriculture in Rwanda.
So, Mr. Gatembeyi, what brings you all the way to Washington?
I’m hoping I can familiarize Americans and decision makers about our soil irrigation system in Rwanda. The project built a dam that you can use in combination with irrigation techniques to help water the fields and plants during the dry season when it’s impossible to keep cultivation going without it. I’m a representative of this project and I am seeking further assistance for this program to succeed. This project has had so much success that if funding gets cut off, it would be difficult to get the project back to pre-project levels of production. We’ve seen production levels increase by sixfold.
Weren’t you upset that you only found out about this irrigation program until recently? It looks like you’ve been farming for a long time!
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Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Minister of Health in Rwanda, Dr. Fidel Ngabo, director of the Ministry of Health in Rwanda and Cynthia Kamikazi of the GAVI Alliance discuss a comprehensive new program to eliminate cervical cancer in Rwanda.
In 2002, the Rwandan government set up a strategy to tackle priority diseases that were the major killers of both adults (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria) and children (gastroenteritis, pneumonia, malaria, meningitis and HIV).
For the past few years, anti-retroviral coverage for HIV patients in need of treatment has increased from 10 percent in 2003 to 82 percent in 2010. The rate of coverage for prevention of maternal-to-child transmission services has reached 78 percent of pregnant women. Malaria incidence has declined by 70 percent between 2001 and 2010. In 2010, the cure rate for tuberculosis treatment was 87 percent. For multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, the cure rate was 91 percent.
During the same year, 98 percent of TB patients were tested for HIV. Other indicators of progress include 94 percent of children vaccinated against pneumococcal disease, and community health workers treating gastroenteritis without delay at village level.
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Understandably the last few weeks have seen a surge in debate around the influence of the Internet and social media on the popular protests in Tunisia and Egypt. Here in Uganda –- when wondering if a similar situation could arise after the Presidential elections on February 18 -– people often mention the growing proportion of the population that is online every day.
However, political leaders in Africa are also using the Internet to communicate directly with their people and interested observers. One such leader is President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who is one of very few Heads of State to operate their own Twitter account. Seeing him online last week I decided to contact him. And amid persistent speculation that he would seek to amend the Rwandan constitution to stand for a third term in office in 2017, I asked what plans he had for a successor?
To my surprise he responded immediately over three tweets:
@josephpowell. It s alwz going to be a complicated questn…while I can stand for what I say n do- it s hard to do that for smbody else..
@josephpowell but I want n i kno others want to see things continue in good direction..in Rw. So it s in my interest n duty to work with..
@josephpowell ..with others to manage well that succession process…and we will!
So a clear commitment from one of Africa’s most prominent leaders that he will step down in 2017 and hand over to a successor – a move that would surely cement his legacy in re-building Rwanda from the point of destruction to arguably one of the continent’s better functioning states. And all of this over Twitter. A sign, perhaps, that the increasingly diverse range of communications tools will not just be used for coordinating protest in Africa.
Yesterday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the United States-Rwanda Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) out of committee. This is the first BIT concluded between the United States and a sub-Saharan African country since 1998. This BIT was initiated by former President George W. Bush and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in 2008 and has been waiting for Senate action since then.
A BIT is a treaty of law between the US and another nation. This treaty will promote trade between the two countries by providing legal protections for both countries — including transparency in governance and neutral arbitration.
US investors are protected because both countries agree to conduct business using certain legal and investment principles. We at ONE are excited that this treaty will help to promote growth and foreign investment in Rwanda by showing that the US government has given Rwanda a “seal of approval.”
This treaty must now be approved by the full Senate. We are hoping that the Senate will ratify the treaty before adjourning for the holiday break.
Photo courtesy of Away2Africa.com
