(3 minutes read)
· In the southern province of Rwanda’s Nyanza district, a cooperative of widows is successfully using mushroom cultivation to lift them from poverty that they are into
· The saving group, when it was started, had only 12 women in 1995. Now it has transformed into a cooperative with 30 members and a fairly large business volumes
· Mushroom growing which has a large market in Rwanda and outside, has transformed the livelihoods of its members and others
· The cooperative now adopts modern practices for growing mushrooms and marketing the produces
In the southern province of Rwanda’s Nyanza district, a cooperative of widows is successfully using mushroom cultivation to lift them from poverty that they are into.
The saving group, when it was started, had only 12 women in 1995. Now it has transformed into a cooperative with 30 members and a fairly large business volumes. Mushroom growing which has a large market in Rwanda and outside, has transformed the livelihoods of its members and others. The cooperative now adopts modern practices for growing mushrooms and marketing the produces.
Mushroom cultivation has many advantages. It does require only very light capital. Each member invested 400 Rwandan Franc. The project was sponsored by ActionAid Rwanda, a nongovernmental organization. The success in the initial stages motivated them to form a cooperative. They could carry out cultivation in a small piece of land since mushroom cultivation needs only limited land and yet generates a large yield. Now, the cooperative earns about 40,000 Rwf ($41), from selling mushroom spores daily. The cultivation not only provided them a better occupation but also a comfortable livelihood for people who are dependent on them.
