Outline of the project
The project will implement weaving training for vulnerable women in Rwanda in Africa by utilizing banana fiber extracted from discarded banana stems. Special skills to weave banana fiber by weaving tools and produce
high quality crafts, which were developed in Japan, will be offered by a Japanese expert. Once the training is done, the products are expected to become competitive in the international market. The trainees include female genocide survivors and orphans, and
they will become trainers for their cooperative members. More than 250 family members of the women are expected to be benefited ultimately and receive new income. This project would realize sustainable local economic development in one of the least developed
countries.
What is banana fiber?
Banana fiber is extracted from banana stems after the harvest. Rwanda is one of the biggest banana producers in the East African Community and a large amount of banana stems after the harvest are discarded without
any major use. In Rwanda, the Government survey shows roughly average 1.7 million ton of banana has been produced annually in recent years and over 16,000 ton of banana fiber is estimated to be available every year as banana stems are mostly discarded. Banana
fiber has features of good absorbent, highly breathable, quickly dry with high tensile strength and bio-degradable. Some of the banana fiber products are already in the international market such as paper, pallets/boards and even textile, yet the technology
is not fully introduced to Rwanda at present.
Rwanda is still one of the poorest countries and there are a large number of venerable women.
Rwanda was ranked 151th of Human Development Index in 2014 and its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was 644 USD at the latest report from the Government, which still indicates low human
and economic development. More than 80% of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture and the majority live in a poor living condition. In particular, women who became widows or orphans after 1994 genocide are one of the most vulnerable groups in
the society. The project intends to improve the living condition of those vulnerable women in banana plantation areas in Rwanda by utilizing locally available agricultural resources that are not currently fully used. More concretely, the project will extract
banana fibers from discarded banana stems and generate a new income opportunity for those women because of its local availability and unique features to be able to develop high quality weaving products.
Weaving training is an effective income generation opportunity for vulnerable women.
Producing weaving products out of banana fiber is one of the effective ways to create additional income for poor women at the banana plantation area because of abundance
of the raw materials. However, an intensive training session to master skills in weaving high quality banana fiber products is essential for those women so that the weaving products become competitive enough to the international market.
Multiple positive effects to the country’s development through the project:
The training will offer a new technology developed in Japan and enable vulnerable women in Rwanda to weave the products with weaving tools from extracted banana fiber.
The potential products through this technology introduction are dining mats and tapestry on the wall reflecting Rwandan traditional designs, for examples. Once the skill is developed, there is a high chance that they
can be self-sufficient by selling the products not only to local markets but also to the international market.
The project will also help to bring a new culture to Rwanda of weaving by using weaving tools. As the fiber is a locally available natural resource, the project can materialize a sustainable business for the targeted
population.
How to implement the training:
The highlight of this training is to provide the target women with high technical skills to weave banana fiber products by using weaving tools, which will last for a few weeks and enable women
to weave more sophisticated patterns and designs than hand-weaving.
The proponent of this project already trained those women to produce simple handicrafts without weaving tools in the past. This new training will offer the next step of skills to the women that will enable to produce
much more sophisticated banana fiber weaving products which can be appealed even to the international market.
As the tools are already secured by receiving grants from the Government of Japan, only the following remain for this training realization:
*** To invite a Japanese expert, who can teach how to apply for the Japanese technology and how to use the weaving tools for banana fiber weaving production
*** To organize a 17-day training session for around 10 vulnerable women, who can become future trainers to bring back the skills of banana fiber weaving by using the weaving tools back to their local women cooperatives
that they belong to
54 women are expected to have an opportunity of this banana fiber craft making by using the weaving tools through this training ultimately, and more than 250 family members will be positively affected and improve their
livelihoods.
Introduction of the team leader
products, which created an access to the local market. She also recently worked as a team leader of conducting a feasibility study to investigate banana fiber business potentials in Rwanda by making clothes and other products, which was requested by the Government
of Rwanda.
Local weaving assistant
Amani Karisa is a Rwandan fashion designer as well as a weaving teacher for the basic level. As she knows the situation of the country very well and being as a woman and a mother, she has a high motivation to
commit herself to advance the weaving skills of the vulnerable women in order to get them out of the poverty and create jobs.
Voice from trainees/a cooperative representatives of vulnerable women
So far, targeted vulnerable women were trained to obtain skills to produce banana fiber hand-woven products, which created access to the local market.
For example, one cooperative participated in this training says that the number of cooperative members were doubled and their income increased for 1.5 times through this new banana fiber product sale.
Expected project results and thank you gifts
Once our fundraising campaign has become successful, we would like to offer thank you gifts according to financial contributors’ donation levels. The gifts are from Ruise B Rwanda products, which are produced by vulnerable
women in the capital Kigali city (different people from this project target) and sold by the team leader as high quality fair trade handicrafts. The below pictures show the reward images.
You can choose your favorate color or design if there are varieties. For more detail information on each product, please see the folloing website:
http://www.ruisebrwanda.com/8-2/
Once the training is realized, high quality banana fiber tool-weaving products of the value of more than 9,000 USD are expected to be produced annually by vulnerable women in Rwanda where each woman can increase her
income for about $170 per year (ref: GDP per capita in Rwanda was US$644 in 2013).
Moreover, we can help the women to have enough capacity to continue banana fiber weaving on their own. Therefore, this business model should be sustainable.
We will update you the implementation / outputs of this banana fiber weaving training by e-mail twice during and after the training session together with sending thank you gifts to all financial contributors. Also,
the updates will be posted on the Facebook "Rwanda Banana Fiber Project" site https://www.facebook.com/rwandabananafiberproject that we organize.
Please kindly join this initiative and help realize the banana fiber tool weaving training for vulnerable women in Rwanda under ‘Rwanda banana fiber project’!
