How a single Jersey cow turned round life for a rural Rwandan community

Jacqueline Munganyinka, 42, a resident of Bwinsanga Cell, Gishali Sector of Rwamagana District, has experi¬enced a rapid transformation in her life over the last few years – thanks to a Jersey cow donated under ‘One Cow per Poor Family Programme’ locally known as Girinka.

The mother of three used to live in poor conditions, but after getting the Jersey cow in 2012, her family’s life started improving progressively. She managed to renovate her house and connect it to electricity, enrolled her school-going children to a good private school and now cover her family’s health insurance among other needs.

For Munganyinka, the single jersey cow provides her with an average of 21 liters of milk every day – of which she sells 12 liters to generate income for her family.

“My family’s life has been improving significantly. I get enough milk for home consumption and surplus for sale,” testifies the mother of three.

Munganyinka adds that the benefit from the cow had gone beyond im¬proving daily nutrition for her family to become a source of in¬come that can be invested in oth¬er activities. This is in addition to the manure that adds fertility to her farmland.

“I’ve been able to raise income from milk sales and buy more land so as to expand my farm. And I harvest at least 4 tons of beans every season because I use manure to increase the crop productivity while I sued to get around 50 kgs of beans before,” she says.

With her immediate needs taken care off, Munganyinka is now saving money thanks to the single cow she got when she was still poor about five years ago.

“I had no bank account a few years ago because I had no money. Now that I have many stable sources of income, I start¬ed working with some financial institutions to save money for bigger projects. I’m now planning to install a biogas system for cooking thanks to my savings,” she says.

Most interestingly, Munganyinka has donated the first female calf to her neighbor Anastasia Mukakagarama, who, in turn, has also donated the first calf (third generation) to another vulnerable person from the same community. All the beneficiaries are experiencing significant improvements of their livelihoods thanks to the single cow. And the ‘pass on’ practice goes on to reach more families while also sealing a bond of friendship of the community.

Munganyinka and her neighbors share the same success story with thousands of Rwandan families who have benefited from Girinka; a national programme spearheaded by the government and supported by other stakeholders. This improvement of living conditions thanks to the cow is evidently meeting the objective of alleviating poverty and im¬proving nutrition that the government intended to achieve when it launched the programme in 2006.

“It was a delight to see results of the ongoing work of Jersey Overseas Aid, Send a Cow and Rwanda Ministry of Agriculture to transform the Rwandan dairy industry,” commented Jersey’s Chief Minister Gorst after visiting the beneficiaries in Rwamagana District. The Jersey’s Chief Minister, who was in Rwanda from March 04 to 06, 2017, commended the Girinka programme for the contribution it has been playing in improving lives of Rwandan beneficiaries. Jersey Overseas Aid is one of the partners that have been contributing to the success of the programme.

Since its inception in 2006, Girinka programme has distributed more than 250,000 to vulnerable Rwandan families. The programme has emerged as one of the home-grown so¬lutions taken from traditional Rwanda’s culture traits and has been ap¬proved by the cabinet as one of the measures for attaining Vi¬sion 2020 and the Economic De¬velopment and Poverty Reduc¬tion Strategy.

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