Tree Nurseries

Who wants a more idyllic setting to work in? In the outdoors with enough shade and the rolling green hills as surrounding. Tree nurseries is an established yet still immerging initiative by the RDIS, beneficial to the individual households, the community and the globe. People can come to the nursery to learn how to grow all sorts of trees and fruit plants. They pay between 5 and 10 Rwandan Francs (that’s 0.5 to 1 pence), depending on their capability, as a token of valuing the service, to decrease their dependence on NGO aid and to increase the project’s sustainability (decrease its dependence on external funding). The nursery also produces its own trees to be sold to the community for very little, in order to promote their vision of each household with arable land to plant at least 5 trees per year. Each nursery produces in the order of 100 000 trees per year.

Three types of plants are grown: Forestry (e.g. timber for building houses, fire wood), agriculture (e.g. leaves providing feed for animals; trees that enhance soil fertility) and fruit. Around 35% of the country suffers from malnutrition, most instances because there is simply not a fruit-eating culture, even though the country is able to produce almost every kind of fruit available. Apart from the benefits to the households, excess trees could be sold by them to generate income. It clearly holds lots of benefits!