Rebuild Women’s Hope

The award winning Rebuild Women’s Hope cooperative is empowering women with a spirit of entrepreneurship and self-management. They know that a community where women are empowered is a thriving community.

Founded in
2013

Location
On Idjwi island, in Province du Sud Kivu

Altitude
1,460m to 2,000m

Membership
1,447 producers (1,172 women
and 275 men)

Varieties
Red Bourbon, Blue Mountain

Certifications
Organic, Fairtrade

Average size of land per farmer
0.217 hectares

Grades
K3, K4, Natural

Rebuild Women’s Hope, on the Idjwi island, May 2023

Headquarter
On Idjwi island, in Province du Sud Kivu

Infrastructure
4 washing stations: Kolwe, Boza, Hala, Chasi

Management team
15 staff

Technical team
31 staff, including 10 agronomists and 12 technicians in washing stations during harvest time (3 per WS)

Main harvest period
February to June

Export period of main harvest
June to December

Fly crop harvest period
September to December

Fly crop export period
December to January

Rebuild Women’s Hope

Established by Marceline Budza in 2013, Rebuild Women’s Hope, RWH, is a cooperative led by women coffee farmers located on the large, remote island of Idjwi in Lake Kivu. Their mission is to produce specialty quality coffee whilst empowering women and raising the standard of living of their members and the community, with a spirit of entrepreneurship and self-management. They believe that a community where women are empowered is a thriving community.

RWH began by improving the quality of coffee on Idjwi, building two modern coffee washing stations on the southern shores of the island at Boza in 2016, with support from Hala Coffee, resulting in first place in the Saveur de Kivu competition in 2017.

Today Rebuild Women’s Hope specialty natural, fully washed coffees are exported to the USA, UK, France, The Netherlands and Japan. They built two further coffee washing stations in 2021 and 2022, and obtained the Fairtrade and Organic certifications in time for the 2022 harvest.

Marcelline Budza, president of Rebuild Women's Hope

Rebuild Women’s Hope has made a significant contribution to improving the social and economic well being of the community.

Rebuild Women's Hope has used the profits from coffee sales to construct seven water pumps near its washing stations and the surrounding villages to provide clean water benefiting over 2,500 women.

Rebuild Women's Hope has also introduced several social programs such as healthcare provision. In 2019, the cooperative conceived a vision to build a Maternity and Paediatric Medical Centre to tackle problems in pregnancy and childbirth often resulting in death. Mozzo Coffee provided the core funding through their C2C fund and the medical centre was built in 2020, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. By July 2021, 354 babies had been born, and the medical centre had treated 2,345 inpatients and 876 outpatients. There are plans to build a small operating theatre to enable caesarean sections to be undertaken.

The Women’s Centre was built and equipped in 2020, with funding from the French Republic Human Rights Prize awarded to Marceline in 2019 by the French Government. As a base for community work, the Centre provides courses in tailoring and sewing, baking, soap-making and business skills training in order to help women to make an income to support their families outside of the coffee season. In addition, the center offers legal advice to help women defend their rights.