Distribution of cows is a sign of love and unity among Rwandans, like when you are appreciating someone you love, you give him a cow, looking back into our history we find that a cow has a strong attachment to Rwandans, nothing worth you can give to someone rather than a cow because a cow in Rwandan tradition, is the most prized belonging to a family. Cows have been the symbol of wealth, social status, source of milk, covenant, meat and hides, and best gifts that one Rwandan could give to a fellow compatriot.
In 2016 GITESI COFFEE started this project to improve the lives of Rwandan coffee farming families in Karongi District, in partnership with Tim Williams of Bureau Collective. Apart from producing numbers of containers of top quality, traceable coffee each year, the gifting of cows to under-resourced households is a practice known as a Girinka program, and in the case of these smallholder farmers can be an invaluable resource—providing their families milk for nourishment and sale, as well as organic fertilizer for their crops. GITESI COFFEE is an important source for the surrounding community of smallholder farmers.
We Distribute cows to local farmers every year to provide an alternative income stream, the first born of each cow is given to another farmer, which is a sign of love and unity among Rwandans as our government policy states that people live together in harmony to avoid that our country could return in the Genocide that we have been through in 1994. This enhance the unity and reconciliation because a survivor can give a cow, someone who killed his family, as a sign of forgiveness and love.
