As a leader within Rambagirakawa, Dukunde Kawa Cooperative’s women’s alliance, Laurence Mukakabera is an incredibly busy woman. Whenever she’s not tending to her farm, she’s weaving baskets and handicrafts with fellow Rambagirakawa members, or helping care for her granddaughter. While Laurence’s production is small (she owns 550 trees), she grows and picks her coffee with meticulous attention to detail and care, resulting in exceptional quality that translates to an intensely sweet and juicy final cup.
Background
Laurence was born into a coffee-growing family, and began to learn about farming from a very young age. Upon getting married, she established her farm with her husband, using seedlings they collected from already established coffee farms in the region. Sadly, Laurence became a widow during the horrific Rwandan genocide, forcing her and her two children to flee to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) until the troubles in her country subsided. During these years, she supported herself and her family by weaving and selling baskets, as she had no access to any land for farming. When she returned to Rwanda, she found her property destroyed, and she faced the task of rebuilding her life from scratch while caring for her children.
Using her precious experience as a coffee grower, Laurence decided to re-start her plantation to generate her main income, and continued to weave baskets during the off-season. Through years of hard work, she was able to rebuild her home and educate her two children, eventually joining Dukunde Kawa Cooperative. In doing so, Laurence was able to connect and share her knowledge with other genocide survivor farmers in the area, becoming a leader within the co-op. When the Rambagirakawa women’s group was established, Laurence was one of the first to join — helping her reach a wider market with the baskets she continues to weave, and earning her a more stable and reliable income year-round. Today, Laurence owns 550 coffee trees and has gone to become a leader within Rambagirakawa. At her farm, she also keeps a cow she received from Dukunde Kawa and a pig she bought with the income generated through coffee. Along with coffee, Laurence grows sustenance crops like beans, cassava, potatoes and corn, which help keep her farm’s soil healthy and free of erosion.
Future
For Laurence, who looks after her granddaughter during the day, the completion of the Musasa Early Childhood Development Centre (which was largely funded by Australia and Thailand’s coffee communities) has been hugely beneficial. Not only is she involved as part of the centre’s leadership, but her daughter also works as one of the carers. When the ECDC first opened, the babies and toddlers who attended struggled to adjust to being separated from their mothers and grandmothers. Because Laurence lives a few hundred metres from the centre, she was able to volunteer her time during those early weeks, making the little ones comfortable as they adapted to the change. Mukakabera firmly believes the centre will have a lasting impact in the Ruli community, as she told us, “I believe the future is bright, and I hope the kids that will be raised there will be performing well in other educations. We are developing a brighter future generation through the ECDC. We are elevating the new cooperative leaders, or even the president of Rwanda!“
