Rwanda Entrepreneurs’ Savings Stokes Business Endeavors
High in the hills of Kabeza village in Rwanda’s Karongi district, Ildephonse Kajyibwami crouches in front of a small mound of dried earth. He removes a protective door and lights a bundle of dried straw on fire. He slowly blows, coaxing the smoke into the opening.
Ildephonse Kajyibwami smokes out bees to remove a honeycomb from a beehive near his home in Kabeza village in Rwanda.
Photo by Jennifer Lazuta/CRS
Almost immediately, there is a loud buzzing. Dozens of honeybees begin to fly from the structure, hover nearby or land on Ildephonse’s arms, face and torso. He flicks at them absentmindedly, by now impervious to the pain of their stings.
“I have been stung more times than I can count,” he says smiling.
Ildephonse’s path to beekeeping was something he says he never expected. Nine years ago, at age 22, he lost the only paid work he had ever known: mining in the local forest. Having never finished school and with limited opportunities for work where he lived, Ildephonse struggled to meet his basic needs.
This honeycomb was created in a traditional beehive in Rwanda.
Photo by Jennifer Lazuta/CRS
But then, he recalls, one day he was craving honey. He realized that while people harvested it here for personal consumption, there was no place to buy it. He asked a family elder for some bees and, using a traditional beekeeping technique, started his first hive.
At first, he harvested only 9 pounds per season. But over time, he saved up enough money to construct an additional five hives. Less than two years later, he had nine hives and was selling well. He decided to form a small group of other unemployed young people to help care for the bees. Within the next few years, the group had 24 members and was producing more than 220 pounds of honey per year.
Honeybees raised by Ildephonse Kajyibwami, who is a participant in the Gera Ku Ntego project.
Photo by Jennifer Lazuta/CRS
Despite their success, they had never formally learned to manage a business or how to manage and save money. So, when staff members from a local Caritas chapter who worked with Catholic Relief Service’s Gera Ku Ntego project approached the group after hearing of their beekeeping venture, Ildephonse and the others wanted to join.
As part of the Gera Ku Ntego project, which translates as “reach the goal,” Ildephonse and his fellow beekeepers learned Savings and Internal Lending Communities, or SILC groups. Through SILC, they could save and borrow money without needing a traditional bank. They came up with a business plan to expand from traditional beekeeping to modern beekeeping. The group was also able to connect with a middleman who helps them sell their honey in the capital, Kigali—something they never would have been able to do themselves.
Ildephonse Kajyibwami demonstrates how his new traditional beehive will work.
Photo by Jennifer Lazuta/CRS
Using a small grant from the project, the group leased land for 10 years to devote to the hives. They bought 30 more traditional boxes and 10 modern boxes. Their first attempt at transferring the bees to the modern boxes was unsuccessful, but Ildephonse says they are optimistic that with the proper training, these hives too will flourish.
“The dream is to have more roots in modern beekeeping because it produces more, but also to maintain traditional methods,” Ildephonse says. “We also want to eliminate the middleman and sell directly to cities to further increase profit.”
CRS Rwanda empowers Rwandan youth to thrive by helping young Rwandans to sustain meaningful income generation and to utilize formal financial services to expand their small- and medium-sized enterprises. CRS implements Gera Ku Ntego, a privately-funded CRS project, which leverages existing key relationships with local stakeholders, such as the Government of Rwanda, the Church and the private sector, who understand the severity of and seek to improve Rwanda’s youth unemployment, including the specific barriers to access to formal finance. The Gera Ku Ntego project is implemented in eight districts of Rwanda and aims to reach 7,441 young participants and help them sustain meaningful income generation and use formal financial services to expand their small- and medium-sized enterprises.
