{Mukamana Laurence, a 58-year old woman from Karihira village, Gihembe cell, of Kageyo sector from Gicumbi district has two stories to her life; a story of hopelessness and swimming into sweeping poverty and another story of progress and living a dignified life . She has had a hard life. Now she has a good life. She has been living with HIV/AIDS and as a widow since 1994. Mukamana has three children of who one has completed secondary school.}
She lived a life of pauperism as she could hardly find decent means of fending for her family.
But she kept on hoping against hope. That little flicker of hope got nurtured when she was selected among beneficiaries of Girinka program in 2006.
“Whoever has the time-honoured trait of determination is bound to succeed and attain the goals of her aspirations. I remember hard conditions I experienced in the past. After getting ARV therapy, I would go to beg, to be able to get a bite, simply for life’s survival. However, the situation has changed. When I got the cow, I started drinking milk in good and satisfactory portions. As a sickly person who was formerly frail and waiting to die, I regained strength, a good physical appearance and above all a flooding amount of hope. It was then that I started thinking of a project from which I could earn and support my family survival,” she narrates with a burning glow of confidence splashed over her aging face.
With the use of cow droppings as manure, she explains, the yields from her not so expansive garden increased. And with drinking milk on a regular basis and in desired quantities, her health sprouted and her formerly emaciated body blossomed into a new state. The worries about HIV/AIDS were subdued. She was now in company of a good income from the milk and the garden, and a proud woman affording a balanced diet.
Mukamana can now earn Rwf 15,000 every week from her garden selling fruits and vegetables. She says she preferred growing fruits and vegetables to other crops that would not take her much strength as a person living with HIV/AIDS.
She has exploited her garden in which she planted to the extent that she has managed to build a beautiful house of three bedrooms and a sitting room worth Rwf 2,000,000.
Mukamana explains that she, as usual, takes anti retroviral drugs and is able to feed and support her children.
Talking to IGIHE, ,Mukamana said that she wants to meet President Paul Kagame face to face to voice her appreciation over his good leadership that has recognized the vulnerable and supported them from the abyss of death to becoming millionaires like her.
“I have been hearing president Kagame on radio but I want to meet him. His Girinka program uplifted me from poverty, hopelessness and near death. I would have died but you can see how healthy I am. No one can tell from mere looking that I am HIV positive,” narrates Mukamana.
{{Girinka, the silver bullet }}
The Girinka Munyarwanda program was launched in 2006 by President Paul Kagame as an effort to support poor families get out of extreme poverty and hunger. The program is expected to be completed in 2017 where 350,000 poor families will have got cows.
A survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources in 2014/2015 indicates that Rwandese livelihoods were transformed through Girinka program.
Milk production has increased between 2009-2010 to 333,727 liters, a 20% increase from the previous period before the program.
Farmyard manure in Ngoma district is said to have increased crop production of Girinka beneficiaries by 90%. Others have used cow dung to construct biogas facilities, eliminated nutritional deficiencies, fed into unity and reconciliation as well as improved access to medical insurance and education.
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