A Community Boat

A Community Boat for the rural lakeside village of Nyabitare, Gihombo

2016 - 2023

Because of its location on a peninsular of Lake Kivu, getting to hospital on foot using narrow tracks took at least half a day for the folk of Nyabitare (formerly known as Gasundwe). Transporting goods to the local market at Mugonero meant hiring a boat from a nearby village, which was expensive and wasn't always available.

In 2016, the congregation of Bamford & Norden Chapel in Rochdale dedicated their annual international fund-raising campaign to support the Village Rwanda UK (VRUK) boat project. In January 2017, Barbara & Addie Redmond, members of the chapel congregation, presented VRUK with a very generous donation of £5,382, enabling the boat project to begin.

This project provided the village, not only with employment in the building of a boat, but more importantly, an opportunity to form a boat co-operative business. It was to be a sustainable income generation project, as well as a life-saving facility giving easier access to health care.

In May 2017, the 55-seater boat with roof, was built in under 10 days using local labour and traditional methods.  With its new Yamaha engine, it could get to the main tarmac road for the local hospital and market in under half an hour. 

Within three months of the Boat Cooperative being formed, the business became profitable and, in addition, gave employment to three local people.

Unfortunately, due to local competition (even rivalry) with an already established passenger boat, the use of the VRUK boat for a passenger hire business was compromised, and the project stalled.

However, in 2018, with the formation of the local Rwandan NGO, Gihembo Forward (GiFo), with whom VRUK works in partnership, the boat project was revived and revised with a different focus. With sustainable income generation projects being encouraged by VRUK and implemented by GiFo, the stoves group was formed. These six villagers devote two days a week, away from their agricultural roles to make safe, eco-friendly stoves to sell within the area.

So, the boat was rebuilt on the lake shore, using the original materials to be a freight carrier, although passengers can still be transported when required. Now the boat with its original Yamaha engine, owned and maintained by GiFo, is rented out to the stoves group so they can expand their market area along the lakeshore and beyond. This is proving to be a successful enterprise and partnership, showing how local knowledge and local need can be implemented by local people. GiFo also use the boat to transport the ingredients (soya, maize and beans) from the Mugonero market for the nursery feeding programme. The goats for the Goat Project were transported from the local market to ensure they arrived in good health, rather than completing a long journey on foot. Now, even more than before, the focus of VRUK and GiFo is to encourage small business enterprises to start up and thrive, with the boat playing an important part in the sourcing materials and accessing markets further afield.

The latest trustee visit by Lynne and Darryl in April 2023, confirms that the boat is an asset to the community. When they asked if the community would manage to do all that they do without the boat, the emphatic answer from the chair of GiFo was,

‘No! The Stoves Group’s work would have stopped, and the transport of nursery porridge ingredients would have been more expensive. Also, the boat allows more flexibility, according to the weather. When it is rainy, transport is difficult and having the boat allows for easier access and smoother running of local activity.’

The next stage in the project is for the other fledgling business enterprises to reach out to markets beyond Nyabitare. It could, for example, be used during the mango period for transporting these and other produce to Gisenyi, to the north on Lake Kivu. In addition, the boat will be required for a planned tourism enterprise, involving a fishing experience on the lake, as well as for transporting those visitors to other local places of interest. The well-established tourist Nile Congo Trail runs close to the Nyabitare area, giving potential for GiFo’s planned tourism development.

Our sincere thanks go to our friends at Bamford & Norden Chapel for choosing VRUK as their 2016 fund raising project and their part in the sustainable development of this rural and economically poor area of Rwanda. For the folk of Nyabitare, and indeed wider Gihombo Sector, the future is brighter.