The Rwanda Project
The incredible women of Avega Agahozo proudly display their textiles, bags, clothing, jewelry and woven basket vessels. It’s all art!
Meet the incredible women of Avega Agahozo. AVEGA is an abbreviation of Association des Veuves du Genocide Agahozo, which translates as the Association of Genocide Widows. Agahozo is a Kinyarwanda word meaning, ‘a place where your tears dry.’ As survivors of the Rwandan genocide, the fortitude, tenacity, courage, resilience, and level of care for other humans of these women is remarkable, to say the least. Their resilient spirits are examples to the rest of the world in these troubled and uncertain times of COVID19.
I travelled away from rainy Ireland (via zoom video) to Rwanda for six weeks and had the great privilege to meet with these women. We worked through all 7 of my Holistic Business Development steps. What truly perplexed me was the level of resilience they embodied! Most of the Avega Agahozo are grandmothers and mothers. Still, they came to learn new skills and new approaches to the business to help their families and community. There are over 25,000 women in this organization alone.
During the Strength Step (step #3), we looked at superpowers. Which superpowers do you think they mentioned? Superpowers for Stopping Violence; Job Creation; and Advocacy! These are leadership powers that these women had no choice but to step into due to the horrific circumstances that they had to endure.
In my opinion, they are all Super Women who protect their families and community.
This group of women are creative, loving and dedicated to nourishing their families and society. After the genocidal war, the rebuilding of the country and land fell on these fierce ladies shoulders. The community opened its arms further and while most women were already raising children of dead relatives, others adopted up to 7 additional children! They share food, shelter and money while they continue to support each other through the rebuilding of their lives.
Their community spirit is beyond admirable. This is the most vital power that women have – to support each other with integrity and full unshaken trust. They are compatriots, women warriors that have been through hell and back together! In the Western world, where the individual spirit continues to prevail, we do not understand this power. They live for each other; we live for ourselves.
The eye-opening moment for me was during the Wisdom Step (step #6). I felt a bit foolish when I decided to help them create a very basic budget to cover food, shelter and clothing. I soon discovered that this wasn’t a very realistic expectation for the average family in Rwanda. Their budgets cover food and only a small fraction of shelter at best. Most households barely can cover their food.
Seeing what little income they had to work with I decided to utilize the group's forceful iron will and help create their own independent and sustainable business.
This is how the Avega Agahozo Group Etsy store began. You can see the gorgeous textiles, clothing and bags, jewellery and woven basket bowls the women make.
The store is not quite set up yet but please do check back later as I will post the link here.
I am so privileged to be able to meet and work with these amazing women and I learned so much in the process. They changed me for the better and I look forward to seeing all the incredible things they will do for their community in the future.
~Anya Spark