Empowerment for indigenous People; Batwa in Rwanda

Dear Patrons, 

I am very happy to share with you in detail, more information on the Batwa community in Rwanda and to share with you the main activities RWAYDAVO is planning to do to empower indigenous people in Rwanda. 

Batwa group are the most marginalized groups in Rwanda, these people have lived in what is contemporary Rwanda as well as parts of neighboring Burundi, Uganda, and Congo for centuries, pursuing their traditional hunter-gatherer type existence in the region's once plentiful forests. Nowadays, they find their habitats and their livelihoods have been denied them. The Rwandan state has for decades been taking over and controlling forest areas for conservation, tourism, and security purposes.

The National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda done in 2018, has estimated the Batwa population to be at between 25,000 – 30,000 which is around 1% of the Rwandan population.  Rwanda has experienced genocide in 1994, during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, members of the Hutu ethnic majority of Rwanda murdered as many as 1,000,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. The post-genocide law prevents the collection and dissemination of data disaggregated by ethnicity, so exact numbers of the Batwa cannot be calculated easily.

In Rwanda, the Batwa are also known as: “abasigajwe iynuma n’amateka (the ones who have been left behind by history). Outside of Rwanda, the Batwa are known as Twa, “Pygmies” (a pejorative term), forest people and (former) hunter-gatherers. Transitional justice efforts implemented by the Government of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide has eliminated ethnic designations, rejected the recognition of special categories of the population, and criminalized any speech or action deemed “divisionist” given the history of divisive policies and rhetoric that led up to the genocide.

Before full eviction from the forests in the 1970s – 1990s, the Batwa relied on the resource-rich forests for their sustenance, livelihoods, spiritual activities and identity. Much of their traditional territory has now been turned into three of the country’s national parks – Volcanoes, Gishwati-Mukura and Nyungwe – depositaries of a majority of Rwanda’s biodiversity and which generate significant tourism revenue. The Batwa have been effectively denied access to their homelands and with that have lost most of their means of making a living and now live a shockingly impoverished existence. There are now acute problems such as the poverty and marginalization of the Batwa and due to their social status and poverty they are isolated.

The overall goal of the project is to empower indigenous and most vulnerable people through integrated social, educational, health, and economic interventions.

This project will provide social support, vocational training, mentorship, livelihood training, literacy and numeracy training, and economic support for indigenous and most vulnerable people.

Objectives:

1. To provide social educational support to most needy project beneficiaries.
2. To improve the socio-economic status and living standards of targeted indigenous and most vulnerable people though creation of job opportunities and income generation micro-projects.
3. To improve the health and welfare of indigenous and most vulnerable people
4. To reduce the internalized stigma, social discrimination, and isolation faced by indigenous and most vulnerable people.

The project targets 4,200 indigenous and most vulnerable people who are severely affected by extreme poverty in Rulindo District, Northern Province of Rwanda.

The main activities of the project are the following:

• Selection of indigenous and most vulnerable people to group them in cooperatives in each target sector of Rulindo District 
• Creating four cooperatives of indigenous and most vulnerable people (Two cooperatives in each targeted sector) to start livelihood initiatives.
• Training of Cooperatives of identified indigenous and most vulnerable people on poultry farming
• Provision of hybrid chicken for rearing to create cooperatives to improve their income.
• Mentorship and Close Follow-Up by a hired professional veterinarian
• Organizing vocational training on handcrafting and pottery arts for income generation to target identified talented indigenous and most vulnerable people.
• Conducting learning visits to identify Modernized Cooperatives working on improved Pottery and Handcrafting and Successful Potters.
• Continuous mentorship   for functional cooperatives working on Handcrafting and Pottery
• Form four credit and saving groups
• Training of the formed groups on credit and saving scheme
• Setting Up Small Food selling Shops (Grocery Food Stores) for created credit and saving scheme
• Provision of small motivations such as uniforms for children, mattresses, saucepans, etc or awards according to the performance in income generation activity.
• Set Up and Equip a Learning-Opportunity (Free Public Room) Space in each targeted sector of Rulindo district for continuous Education for illiterate indigenous and most vulnerable people out of School.
• Conducting the Stakeholder Meeting to discuss the importance of the Education for illiterate indigenous and most vulnerable people and to inaugurate the set learning Opportunity Space
• Identification of most needy indigenous and most vulnerable children whose families are unable to afford school materials and feeding for their children.
• Social and educational support for the selected children from nursery to secondary (Provision of educational materials for children: children’s books, notebooks, pens, school clothes, school feeding, etc.)
• Identification and capacity building of existing teachers, and community peer educators.
• Organizing community and school outreaches to talk about stigma, discrimination, and rights using different strategies such as poems, debates, dialogue, songs, dances, competitions, etc.
• Providing basic literacy skills in reading and writing for out-of-school youths and illiterate parents
• Providing health education on family planning, hygiene, NCDs, sexually transmitted diseases, balanced nutrition, and others
• Organizing community health outreaches for screening of preventable diseases (malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, and non-communicable Diseases) and linking up the affected people to the nearest health facilities
• Provision of community-based health insurance to improve accessibility and affordability of primary health care services
• Providing nutritional support for identified malnourished and stunted indigenous and most vulnerable children (Domestic kitchen gardens, milk, food items, etc.)
• Organizing Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning for the Project

We request you to donate generously to our project so that we can keep working and achieve our goals. You could also consider doing a monthly recurring donation for our project, which will help us with our ongoing work.  The link for the monthly recurring donation.

We thank you for everything that you have done for our project, and we look forward to your continued support.

Thanks and Best Regards.

Jean Damascene UWIZEYIMANA

RWAYDAVO President