Pineapple Widows

An association for widows (from the genocide and HIV AIDS deaths and wives of men in jail) was formed in 2000. Together, the women started growing pineapples for its profitability. The association also brought women together that lived otherwise in isolation, and at their meetings they would assist each other morally and spiritually.

Pineapple sales have enabled the women to send their children to school, to buy proper clothes, obtain health insurance, provide their families with balanced nutrition food including meat once a year and to jointly run a savings and credit programme. It also enabled the association to improve their business with the investment of more and better tools and with them joining a co-operative for pineapple growers. At the end of 2009, the projected savings of the group will amount to 600,000 Rwandan Francs. The aim is mainly to use this money to buy each family a cow.