0
0
Green Gicumbi Project, on February 13th.2025, has marked a significant achievement as 800 beneficiaries officially graduated after successfully completing training in environmental and climate change-related skills.
The training covered key areas of cooperative management, including the new Cooperative Law, Finance and Accounting, Business Planning, and Saving Groups. These modules were designed to strengthen cooperative effectiveness, enhance financial literacy, and promote sustainable business practices among project beneficiaries.
Green Gicumbi Project coordinator, Kagenza Jean Marie Vianney, emphasized the initiative’s role in increasing community ownership and ensuring long-term sustainability of project’s efforts.
Green Gicumbi Project coordinator, Kagenza Jean Marie Vianney
He said “Saving is one of the best ways to help citizens cope with climate change. For example, climate change can cause the loss of their crops or livestock; in that case, they will survive thanks to what they have saved, whether it be money, crops, or other resources.”
He further underscored that climate resilience within communities cannot be achieved until the establishment of saving strategies “There is no climate resilience without saving.” He stated.
Before the inception of Green Gicumbi project, climate change had long affected local communities, triggering unemployment and economic instability.
However, Nzabonimpa Emmanuel, the mayor of Gicumbi district, acknowledged that thanks to projects interventions, “green jobs were created, providing residents with employment and fair wages, which in turn halted labor migration to the neighboring country (Uganda).”
Nzabonimpa Emmanuel, the mayor of Gicumbi district
Sharing success stories, Ayinkamiye Ernestine revealed how the training will greatly assist them in the effective management of their cooperative’s assets unlike the way they did it before.
“The training helped us identify weaknesses in our cooperative’s operations, particularly in asset management,” she said. “However, with the skills we have acquired, everyone is now fully prepared to contribute to the cooperative’s progress and growth.”
These training initiatives fall under the project’s Knowledge Transfer and Mainstreaming component designed to address Rwanda’s environment sector priority issues of weak human technical capacity including monitoring and evaluation and integrated management and information systems. To date, over 12,000 beneficiaries have received training on climate resilience, while 100 farmers have been equipped with modern sylvo-pastoral farming techniques.
