Kabagali Pineapple Project
Team Hope’s partners in Rwanda work with survivors of the 1995 genocide against the Tutsi people, providing counselling, healthcare, shelter, education and training. Their most recent project aims to improve the income capacity or residents in Kabagali and to improve local horticulture. The project is called “The Kabagali Pineapple Project”! And it involves growing a lot of pineapples!
Six months into the two year project, participants are learning how to grow and make an income from this high value crop. The training phase has been completed and 178 farmers, 78% female, have been provided with tools and trained in agriculture and pineapple growing. 20 acres are being used, some even donated by the local government. 712 households, including children, will benefit from the income generated from this amazing initiative.
Both classroom training and extensive practical training have been completed covering pre-planting: erosion control application, land clearing, first ploughing, second ploughing, tillage, levelling and measuring; planting activities: holing, fertilizers application, planting and covering; and post-planting activities including mulching, weeding, fertilizer application, pest and diseases management and harvesting. Because of their training, each of the farmers also planted vegetables at their own homes for their families.
The pineapple planting has now commenced and the 178 new farmers are waiting for their pineapple yield. The group has been split into five cooperatives, each with its own committee. The project has helped the cooperatives to reach out to private sector fruit sales companies to plan the sales of their first harvest.
“We can conclude that through training people received a lot of exposure in the modernised agriculture. Through theoretical and practical experiences, we hope that they gained skills that will improve harvest and their living standards at large. We would like to thank everyone who helped in execution and implementation of the project, Team Hope for funding the project, local government especially Ruhango district, Kabagali for their endeavour involvement and Kabagali farmers for their ownership behavior,” said one of the organisers.
The Team Hope team is so excited to watch these crops grow and to see the positive impact that they will have economically for this community. Sign up to our newsletter for quarterly news about our projects at www.teamhope.ie.
Team Hope is an Irish, Christian and child-focused international development organisation. Founded in 2010, we work in Africa and Eastern Europe to help children affected by poverty or marginalisation. We work with communities to transform children’s lives by tackling poverty and inequality through our Christmas Shoebox Appeal, sustainable development projects and in raising awareness of poverty’s causes and impacts.
