Is It Really 2 Years Of This Sh*t Already...

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary this past September.

In two short years we have over 1,500+ tagged sheep in the project, with more being born regularly and another 200+ females and 40 males to be purchased in the coming weeks.

We have directly affected the lives of close to 8000 men, women and children with cash in pocket (as we source sheep locally), improved crop yields (from 5 sacks of potatoes to 8 sacks), and access to funds (selling sheep) to pay for school fees, health concerns and home improvements.

139 of our first recipients have already completed the terms of their contract and, while we were there, each paid forward a female sheep. These little darlings are the first off-spring of the initiative!

It was incredible to watch as one of farmers from our first group of recipients addressed this group to tell them about his experience with our initiative. He was excited to point out how, in 2 short years he's gone from having no sheep to having 5, even after he paid forward a sheep! As long as he maintains 3 females, he can now eat or sell 2 sheep. That's a potential $100. in his pocket! And the 3 remaining females will produce up to 6 off-spring in the coming months!

Innocente (in the long, black coat) addresses members of the Amizero group.

 

And for the first time, we were joined by 3 very generous sponsor, Roman & Wendy Jovey and Andrea Fine, who were eager to experience Rwanda and see our project.

A whirlwind visit, each day full of insight and adventure, including an Indiana Jones-style trek up and down dense, steep, muddy mountain jungle following elusive chimps, a chance meeting with baboons, and an incredibly up close and personal encounter with the world's only mountain gorillas!

All that in only 3 days!

 

 

Paul also arranged for the opportunity to visit a local school to deliver them various supplies purchased in town (to help the local economy) and to interact with the students while sheep were being tagged for our project nearby.

 

Another trek through farmland, back into the National Park to see Colobus Monkeys...

and finally a visit to our newly fenced, leased land, most immediately being used to temporarily hold sheep being paid forward until delivery can be arranged. The first 139 sheep all spent up to 4 days here before trucks arrived to deliver them. That's a lot of manure to turn into compost!

and then 6 more days on safari in Tanzania! But that's a whole other story...

Greetings all.

Just home.

Sending out thanks to all my wonderful women for all the runnings shoes!

4 hockey bags filled with almost 300lbs of 150 pairs of runners of all styles and sizes made their way from Toronto to Musanze earlier this month, changing planes in Amsterdam and Nairobi.

Paul, our Rwandan partner, connected us with a local girls' high school, government run, for orphans and especially poor.

As the school population was significantly higher than 150 girls, the headmaster determined that girls participating in school athletics would get the runners, to enable them to participate effectively. (It's hard to play soccer in flip-flops.)
The most amazing part of the experience was, in the end, how generous the girls were with each other.
Very counter to the 'f#8k y#o' free-for-all' I've witnessed at clearance house events here in Toronto over the years!


This was but one small part, impacting in a simple yet profound way, of a very exciting and productive trip.
Thanks again to everyone who helped make the event back in June such a success.
Roughly the same time next year, ladies?

Oops, Wait...There's More Sh*t...

I almost forgot to mention that I had a 'Celebration Of Women' back on June 28th. A wonderfully eclectic group of women were treated to an evening of insight and aMUSEment thanks to a very talented group of 4 Intuitives (aka psychics) lead by Mara Leja who read Tarot, Rune stones, Goddess cards and the like, as well as some pampering thanks to masseuses Kimberley Landreville and Heather Heaney. Beautiful handmade jewelry by Shari Morasch and gift cards by yours truly provided a shopping opportunity.

Every woman was asked to bring gently used running shoes to be given to our Rwandan sisters when Jeff and I return to Musanze in October.

I am happy to report that thanks to all these wonderful women, we raised just under $1,000. and 150 pairs of running shoes!

Hey, What's Up With That Sh*t?

It's been quite a while since we updated our blog and there is much to tell you about this little initiative that just keeps growing and gaining traction.
Our February trip seems so long ago.

A brief recap...
Beatrice's house was rebuilt and the community volunteers were kind enough to wait for us before the finishing touches.

As these homes are a combination of wood and a mud/aggregate/cement mixture, we were able to help out with the 'mud' flinging that fills the spaces between the wood. It was great fun, very cathartic, and not nearly as easy as it first looked.

With Paul, our co-founder, Beatrice and Andrew, the leader of The Porters Club of farmers, all standing inside Beatrice's unfinished house.

A volunteer smooths the 'mud' 

We are excited to visit Beatrice and her children living in their new home when we return in October.

We also had a chance to be present for another round of sheep purchase and delivery, this time beginning with the first of the Amizero Group of farmers.
It was a lovely surprise to see that some of the recipients were the same people we met when we stayed over-night at a "traditional village', Iby'lwacu almost 2 years ago. In fact, Jeff had drummed and I did some dancing!

Andrew, the leader of The Porters Club of farmers addressed concerns the farmers had that they would soon have more sheep than they could look after, and wanted to get on with the last part of their commitment to the project, passing on a sheep to other Rwandan farmers from a different cooperative.

Logistics such as the great walking distances between the various farming groups made it difficult to easily pay forward the sheep owed to the project on an individual basis. It would also be more difficult to keep track of the growing number of sheep and to tag them, as well as to have them examined by a vet.

We would need a place to keep the sheep until the transfers could take place.

And so our project begins another initiative.
Thanks to the incredible generosity of a small handful of supporters who will be joining us on a trip to Rwanda/Tanzania in October, we are in the process of negotiating a 5 year lease on a lovely little piece of land, in the heart of the farming community, next to the Iby'lwacu Village, very near a small, spring-fed lake where women and children come to fill their gerry cans with water.
The lease contract is being prepared now, in Knyarwanda of course, so we will have to wait for the translation to be forwarded to us.

Once again, we cannot thank Paul, our co-founder, enough for all his commitment to this amazing little endeavour. It's really his efforts, along with the Rwandan farmers, that make this all possible.

standing on our land with Iby l'wacu Village in the distance

the spring-fed lake just beside our land

It's Not The Same Old Sh*t...

Many of the farmers from our first project, The Porters Club, are now ready, and eager, to pass a sheep on to another farmer, this time from The Amizero (Hope) Group.
And The Amizero Group have been meeting in preparation for our arrival on February 8th.





Meanwhile, we have also undertaken a small side-project.
Beatrice is a hard-working single mother of 3 and struggling subsistence farmer. After only one year Beatrice went from no sheep to 4 sheep! The ewe she received from the project was already pregnant. It gave birth to a female lamb and then went on to have female twins 10 months later. And all 4 will reproduce before the end of 2012. That’s a load of sh*t in the best sense!
Her crop yield increased and she started a small kitchen garden with her children’s assistance.
The co-operative leaders showed us the broken down state of Beatrice’s small, single room home back in October 2011. I didn’t have the heart to look inside. They said if we provided the materials necessary, the community would build her a new one.
Done!
So when we return in February, we will be part of the construction crew in this community initiative.
And we will witness as Beatrice, now the proud owner of a flock of sheep, passes one on to another farmer in a new co-operative. Rwandans helping Rwandans, making us eventually obsolete.

Interesting Sh*t...

We are humbled by and excited about all the support we are getting.
It seems sh*t really can be interesting.

An evening of mesmerizing theatre at The Tarragon introduced us to the incredible talents of d'bi young and her one woman 'Sankofa Trilogy'.
Couple that with the generosity of family, friends and a surprising number of 'newbies'.
Together they have helped to raise almost $9,000.
That's enough for 180 sheep.
Almost exactly what we need to begin our next initiative, working with the 'Amizero (Hope) Group'.
Ex-poachers who gave up illegal hunting to encourage the preservation of the wildlife in the National Park.
As there are 567 of them, we will work in stages.
Beginning next week, Paul, our partner in Rwanda, will meet with the leaders of the 4 groups that make up our first stage.
147 females and 30 males, thanks to our supporters, will be sourced in the extended community, stimulating the local economy.
147 families will soon begin to benefit from the rich, nutritious compost generated by the sheep manure.
And not long after, the babies will begin to arrive.

Pretty soon, we'll have over a thousand sheep in the project.
And that will double a year later.
No shit!


Merry Everything!
Happy Always!

educational sh*t...

There are over 2000 children in Kabwende Primary School.
Half go to school in the morning and half in the afternoon.
They are desperate for school supplies. Basics like pencils, pens, paper, as well as all kinds of additional learning resources and teacher's aids.

To help collect these much needed items, we are putting together educational baskets.

classrooms are as basic as can be imagined

Headmaster examines early readers and math aids

From: Clement Nkuriyingoma <clementnkuriy@yahoo.fr>
Date: 17 October, 2011 11:51:40 AM EDT
To: <rayman@secutor.ca>
Subject: Thanks

I'm Clement Nkuriyingoma Headmaster  of  Kabwende  primary  school near Guest house KINIGI in Musanze  District , Northern  Province / Rwanda . I am very glad to write  for  you .  Thank  you  for  visiting  Kabwende  primary  school  . We enjoyed  very  much  the  gifts given  and we  expect       with  gladness to  receive   other  gifts  of grammar  , dictionaries , worldMap .
In next  January   2012  . _ If  possible  , we  would  like to  ask  you  some teachers  Aids  of Science for each  topics  as mentioned  below :
 1) The water  cycle,
2) Eye ,
3) Purification
4) human  body ,
5) Skeleton  and  Muscles  of the  human  body 
6) Male  and  female  reproductive   system  ,
7) Digective  organs ,...
 We  are  very  happy   for  you  and you have  

delivering supplies

most well come at Kabwende Primary School  .
 Thank you  indeed  .
Faithfully ,  Clement  NKURIYINGOMA

So thank, honour or entice
someone this holiday season!
Instead of the same old baskets of jams,
coffees and cookies, why not ...
Open the doors of learning to change a
child’s life...in the community 
of Musanze, Rwanda- in the foothills of
the forest home to the world’s only
Mountain Gorillas.
School baskets will help teachers put children on the right track to a
positive future!

BASIC BASKET     COST:  $30.00      

greetings and thanks from Musanze, Rwanda

Rarely can simple tools hold the                  

potential to impact a classroom.

Pencils, pens, erasers, rulers,

chalk, notebooks, teaching

posters, world map.

LITERACY BASKET     COST: $50.00

For children living in

poverty, learning to read can

be a powerful life-changing

achievement. Basic Basket

plus storybooks, exercise

books and dictionary.

DELUXE BASKET     COST: $75.00

Resources can transform a

classroom helping children grow

brighter, stronger and more

imaginative. Literacy Basket

plus calculators, protractor sets

and assrt’d creative learning

tools.

email ritarayman@sympatico.ca or call Rita at 416 657 8246 

Tax receipts will be issued.