Project Description:
Our group of interns will be working closely with the Dusabane Business Cooperative in the Cyaruzinge Community outside of Kigali, Rwanda. This village is home to the “Potters,” a marginalized population (formerly known as the Twa people) who face stigma from surrounding communities. The community struggles to pay even nominal $0.40 hospital fees; we will work with the cooperative through collaboration with the Health Development Initiative (HDI), an organization founded by Rwandan physicians to help communities develop economic growth opportunities. In Cyaruzinge, HDI has helped to provide health and education fees, nutrition education, housing, sanitation initiatives, and community gardens — built by UNC Nourish interns in 2014. HDI has provided training for basket-weaving and jewelry-making for the Dusabane women, but these products have little value in the competitive Rwandan market, especially since the women struggle to keep the products clean enough to rival other producers. Since knitted goods are in high demand but under relatively low supply, our knitting interns will guide the women to develop practical knitting skills, including product cleanliness; our business interns will aid the absorption of business administration, financial literacy, and entrepreneurial skills through workshops and direct community involvement. Together, these skills will allow entry into the relatively untapped, promising market of knitted goods. Fueled by the specific skills of each team member, our project aims for a collective social impact that will benefit the Cyaruzinge village, the four team members, and the UNC community.
Meet the Team:
Rachel Kleiman, Knitting Intern
Class of 2018
Environmental Health Science Major
Rachel is interested in everything environmental, especially sustainability and small-scale development. She has experience teaching arts and crafts, leadership experience from summer camp, and ten years of knitted projects in her attic. Rachel is thrilled by the intersection of crafts and social justice. She sees value in this opportunity to leave her comfort zone as she embraces Rwandan culture. She believes in the power that universal skills hold, such as arts and crafts, to overcome cultural differences and language barriers, and she hopes to relay similar universal mechanisms to the UNC community.
Connor Haines, Business Intern
Class of 2017
Business Administration Major
Connor has worked as an on-site analyst with PayStream Advisors, a niche research and consulting company. He has learned to value the importance of culture in business practices through a Kenan-Flagler led global trip to India, as well as prior travel in Ethiopia. Connor was drawn to this trip by the opportunity to collaborate creatively with the Dusabane cooperative. He is excited to merge academic thought about development work with experience, explore a potential career path in NGO work, and tackle a rewarding entrepreneurial project. He loves working in teams to solve challenging problems, and is excited to learn as much as he can from the women of the Dusabane cooperative, while sharing his passion for business development and creative entrepreneurship.
Sarah Wright, Knitting Intern
Class of 2018
Environmental Chemistry Major, Medical Anthropology Minor
Sarah has had an interest in textiles since learning to knit and sew in Girl Scouts, and these skills have claimed much of her time ever since. She is excited to combine these hobbies with her teaching experience to spread a love of craftsmanship. Sarah is excited to learn more about how a reliable source of income, especially that earned by women, affects the health and infrastructure of a community. As a public health major with little current knowledge of other regions of the world, she hopes to broaden her cultural competence and relate experiences in Rwanda back to her classes, currently focused on developed countries, on UNC’s campus.
Hannah Sloan, Business Intern
Class of 2018
Undecided Major
Hannah is fantastically/horrendously undecided academically; she spends her time maintaining a local social venture, evaluating/volunteering with two local microfinance nonprofits, playing soccer, or drawing on anything (and everything). In serving as one of next year’s co-directors of Nourish-UNC (the original campus chapter of Nourish International) she will utilize the perspectives gained through this experience to supplement the critical lens she and the organization continue to take on international community development projects. Cultivating vital leadership skills through navigating sensitive, relationship-based workplace dynamics will help her develop the right questions to ask in approaching NGOs both locally and abroad with a critical yet humble point of view. She is fascinated by human-centered design as it relates to constructing innovative programs to improve social capital on a small scale (using careful metrics of success) and will use this invaluable experience to enhance the work she will undertake in returning to UNC this fall.
Preparation:
As a student organization, we are committed to partnering with the Dusabane Cooperative in a way that bigger organizations focused on large-scale change may not. Our team meets weekly with our coordinator and former HDI intern, Elizabeth Zwart, to discuss project logistics and reflective preparation. We are communicating with an HDI representative who works closely with the cooperative to gauge current skill level. We have been attending speaking events and met with Campus Y employees to discuss power dynamics and other issues that arise during international development work. We have also been communicating with other UNC members who are traveling to Rwanda and researching its history. We will meet with last years’ Nourish team that partnered with HDI to learn from their experience about how to be effective on the ground.
Status:
We are spending the night in Charlotte and starting our travels to Kigali tomorrow at 6:02 AM! Stay tuned for more updates on the ground.