The Workplace: UGAMA/CSC

Just a quick little post to show you where I work and the lovely people I work with! So in Gitarama, Joyce and I are working with a local Rwandan cooperative called UGAMA/CSC ("UGAMA" for short). UGAMA is about the same age as me (lol!) - and was established back in 1988. UGAMA now has over 2,000 member cooperatives through which they mainly provide consulting and training services. Click here to visit their website :-)

My internship position at UGAMA is to act as the Micro Enterprise Development Officer. The exact work I will be doing during my internship is not set in stone yet; but from what I have gathered so far, it seems as though most of our work will revolve around the new project that is being launched between CCA and UGAMA. This project is based on a 3-year pilot project that was carried out previously between CCA and UGAMA that aimed at addressing Food Security through increasing the production and sustainability of 4 of UGAMA's member cooperatives. The pilot project ended up being quite successful, hence the birth of the larger 5-year project that is set to launch next month (October - hopefully). The title of this new project is the "Rwanda: Co-operative Agricultural Growth" or RCAG project -  a 5 year project that will work with 15 of UGAMA's cooperative members (the 4 coops from the pilot project, plus an additional 11 new coops). An explanation of the new project is found below (pasted directly from the CIDA website):

Canadian Co-operative Association

Country: Rwanda

The Rwanda: Co-operative Agricultural Growth project aims to increase food security among vulnerable rural populations in seven districts of Rwanda (Nyanza, Gisagara, Nyamagabe, Ruhango, Muhanga, Kamonyi and Bugesera) and will directly benefit more than 22,000 households and indirectly benefit 132,000 individuals. Building on the success of a three-year pilot project that engaged Rwandan agricultural co-operatives, this project will improve the agricultural production, productivity and marketing capacity of 15 co-operatives and their members. This will be achieved by supporting small-scale rural farmers, organized in co-operatives to improve the quality and quantity of the food they produce, increase their household incomes, and enhance their households' and communities' resilience. (Up to $3,403,000 over 5 years)

Source: http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/ACDI-CIDA.nsf/eng/NAT-1222104721-LJ6  

Joyce and I have spent the past couple of weeks reading about UGAMA and the RCAG project, learning about the objectives and approaches of each. We're hoping to get out to visit the 15 different cooperatives starting next week, which should be really neat and allow us to become familiar with the cooperatives we will be working with through the RCAG project on a more personal level. We're really excited to get out there and start working.

We have also been introduced to the two CCA staff members who will be representing the CCA side of the project: Brian (based in Ottawa) and Fresnel, who will be joining us at UGAMA in Rwanda next month (October), and will be based in Gitarama for 1 year.

While we look forward to meeting the CCA staff shortly, ther's no denying that the UGAMA staff is absolutely great and have been very good to us so far. We feel very welcomed here at UGAMA, and the cooperative really works together as part of a family. We eat lunch together everyday, which I find very enjoyable (even though they mostly speak in Kinyarwanda so we don't understand some of the convo's - but we still have hilarious conversations!).

As I mentioned in my first post, Emmanuel is our supervisor (aka "boss man") at UGAMA, and he has been really kind to us since we've arrived. I'm not going to go into much more detail about work right now since I'm not that "educated" on the project yet, but I thought I would give a mini-intro to UGAMA, the project, and the staff we will be working with during our stay in Rwanda just so that my  friends and family have an idea of what I'm doing, where I'm working, and who I'm working with!

Here are some pics of UGAMA and this wonderful team! :-)

 L to R: UGAMA Main Entrance; Me@desk; Tea Time; Joyce@Desk

Main UGAMA Building

Little Trees @ UGAMA

Emmanuel & I

    

L to R: Espérance & I; Espérance & Pélagie; Védaste at Lunch time

                       

                 Sample of our daily lunch @ UGAMA :-)                                          My Fav. Tree @ UGAMA (lol!)

           

Home @ Azizi Life

So like I said in my last post, I decided that I'd break the past 2 weeks down into several mini-posts so that I dont confuse myself (and you guys lol!) - this is what happens when you begin slacking! So this post I'm going to use to introduce our new home to you: Azizi Life.

Azizi Life itself is actually a business run by an American lady (Christi - who I mentioned in my previous post) and a man from the UK, Tom. Essentially Azizi Life works with local artisans in Rwanda to build community development, economic development, increased access to global markets for their products, etc etc... They truly are a very neat company, and do many many great things! To learn more about Azizi Life as a business, check out their website. :-)

I'm here today to talk to you about Azizi life as our home, though - so I will leave the business details up to the website for further explanation in that area lol! We came across the opportunity to live at Azizi Life through our employer (the Canadian Cooperative Association [CCA]) and the previous CCA interns. The Azizi Life accommodations were highly recommended to us, and described as one of the best options in town - they weren't lying! We honestly couldn't ask for a nicer place to live.

We were given a couple of room options from Chrisit when we first arrived (individual rooms, shared room with separate bathroom or shared room with ensuite bathroom) - we picked the shared room w/the ensuite, this way we don't have to worry about sharing the bathroom when others come to stay at Azizi! :-) Azizi offers "Experience Days" where people can spend a day visiting one of the Azizi artisans/partners in their village, and learn what a day in the life of that Azizi partner is like - very neat idea, and people love the experience days so far! This is when others might stay at Azizi overnight, but so far no one has stayed with us yet.

During the day from Monday to Friday, the house/building operates as the Azizi business office, where Christi, Tom and 3 lovely local Rwandan ladies make up the Azizi team, and Beata (the house lady) come in to fulfill their duties. Everyone is usually finished their work day by the time Joyce and I get home (around 4:30 or 5:00pm, but sometimes we catch some of the ladies before they head out. They are all very lovely people, and have all been very kind to us since we arrived at Azizi. At night, Joyce and I are alone in the house - just us two plus the night guard outside. The guards are also very kind, Nepo and Oscar are the two main guards that we chat with most often - they are super sweet! 

Below are some pictures of the Azizi Life compound/buildings.

From L to R: Azizi Life Gate; Building across from ours where the artisans works from time to time; entrance to the kitchen (left) and our entrance to the house (right); and finally, our room windows from the outside (our room takes up the whole side of that building). 

Joyce and I share a very large bedroom with an ensuite bathroom (pics below). We each have our own bed (on opposite sides of the room), a desk in the middle to share, our own closets (although joyce has yet to be able to access hers lol!), and a full bathroom with running water, a flushing toilet and a real shower! I underline those because I had none of them in Ghana, so this is exciting lol! We also have a hot water tank on the side of the building that we can turn on for hot water when we want to have a warm shower, but we also have yet to experience that as it hasn't been producing hot water since we've been here :S lol! We've been waiting for Tom to get back (he's back in the office today, yay) so that he can check it out for us - but for the past 2 weeks, we've been learning how to "build character" through cold showers (I'm not being very successful on the building character part, I must admit lol!). 

So here are some pics of our room/bathroom.... From L to R: My Bed / side of the room - you can see my closet to the right as well; clothesline outside - my laundry drying in the sun lol!; our sink and toilet in the ensuite; and finally, the shower and bath tub! I couldn't get the shower head in the picture 'cause it was made for giant people and I'm clearly a shorty *blushes* lol!

Theeeeeennn, to the right of our room is a nice little lounge area that is great for hanging out/watching moves/playing games, and all that fun stuff! It has 2 large couches, a lounge chair, a table, bookshelf with books and fun stuff, and two games of Cranium (yet to attempt our brain skills though lol!). There's also two large doors that open to the outdoors, but they're always locked (no biggie, cause we have a sweet patio, which you will see in a bit). 

Now, if you turn left out of our room, then around the corner and down a bit, you'll reach the Kitchen Area! (Also adjecent to the Azizi Life Office and Crafts area) Our kitchen is the perfect size and we have a sink (running water), a gas stove/oven, toaster, 2 coffee pots, a kettle, filtered water, a pantry (with food and tons of spices), and a fridge! Woop! Super exciting. There's also another shelf area on the way to the kitchen that holds all the pots and pans, cups, plates, cutlery, etc etc...!

From L to R: Toaster, coffee pots, stove/oven; Sink, etc; Pantry; Azizi shop.

Having the Azizi craft shop in our home is quite dangerous - there's already like 24 things that I would like to buy lol! But it is also quite exciting since we don't have to travel far to purchase nice local crafts and beautiful gifts for our family and friends (yes, that's you guys! =P )

Now, as if that wasn't exciting enough, we also have a lovely porch that overlooks the Rwandan hillside and the beautiful Azizi gardens that are also available to us for wandering through / enjoying. I wrote yesterday's blog post on the Azizi porch, staring out at the scenery you see in the pics below, #NBD.

Jealous, right?! So that's basically how I'm living in Gitarama at the moment - it's quite a swell set up if I do say so myself! Really fortunate that Azizi had room for us and was willing to host us for the next 6months, quite happy! :-)