Miss Rwanda 2021 Grace Ingabire has embarked on a project to empower community health workers as a way of recognising their selfless efforts to ensure a healthy community across the country. The project is a result of partnership existing between Africa Improve Foods (AIF) and Ingabire’s management, Rwanda Inspiration Backup organization. With their support, Ingabire and her sponsors developed a project that would empower community health workers across the country through income-generating activities. Through the project, the beauty queen donated six pigs to three cooperatives of community health workers in Rwamagana District with a solid distribution plan that will ensure all 1,900 Community Health Workers grouped in 15 cooperatives in the area benefit from this project. Drugs and food for pigs shall also be distributed to the beneficiaries to ensure a successful project. Ingabire expressed her pride for, along with her partners, coming up with a project that can make an impact on the community, especially health workers who work days and nights to ensure an ill-free society through sensitizing communities on childbirth, nutrition, breastfeeding which have been vital to reducing issues such as stunting and giving birth at home. “Embarking on community-centric projects that can impact others is what I signed up for when I was crowned Miss Rwanda 2021. I thank AIF for making this possible and making me a part of this initiative and I look forward to working with them on more projects,” said Ingabire. She explained that the project chose to give out pigs because pig farming in Rwanda has been growing progressively with the number of pigs increasing by 76% in the last five years to over 1.7 million, according to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI). Prosper Ndayiragije, the AIF Country Manager, said that they aim to extend the pig distribution project to other parts of the country and will ensure that all cooperatives of community health workers will benefit from the project. “Community Health Workers are selfless; their work often goes unrecognized yet the result of what they’ve been doing is undeniable. This initiative is a way for us to recognize and support them but also ensure that they grow from this experience,” he said. Beneficiaries in Rwamagana, where the project was launched, hailed Ingabire’s commitment in supporting them as they hope pigs donated to them will play a positive impact on their socio-economic development. This shows us that there are people to recognize the job that we do. We are thankful for this support and we promise to make the best out of their support. We have normally been growing pigs for over the past eight years and we have a professional veterinary doctor who will take care of them,” said William Musoni, the president of Community Health Workers in Rwamagana.
