Celebration of Claude

Claude is PSA's Field Officer. He dedicates his time to the people of Bwiza. He is a soccer star and is using his talents to form a soccer team with the children of the village. We took time out and with the help of Dr. Susan threw a big birthday party for Claude.

Welcome song to Bwiza

Check out our first day back in Rwanda. We participated in a village counsel meeting. Listen...

More farmland for Bwiza

The people of Bwiza have decided to use a recent donation from the US Embassy in Kigali to build terraces to improve their agricultural output. The village of Bwiza is located on steep and rocky hillsides, but the residents are able to cultivate a number of nourishing crops by digging a series of level fields in the hillside. There are 40 new terraces, so each family will own two.
Additionally, a veterinary officer was recruited to follow up with the animals in Bwiza. The officer will visit the village three times a week.

Basket weaving in Bwiza starts up

Thirty-two people in Bwiza are learning to weave traditional Rwandan baskets, as part of paid training provided by UN Women. COPHAD’s representatives on the ground are helping coordinate the project, which will provide the villagers with training five days a week for six months on how to weave a high quality product.




The goal is to generate income. Morale is high!

Bwiza’s musicians perform – get your copy today!

Bwiza's performance group has just released a new CD of traditional songs about peace, unity and hope. This is unique music that you can't hear anywhere else!

With a donation of $35 or more, you can have your very own copy of the CD.

(Please write “Kwizera CD” in the “Special instructions” section when you make your donation.)

Thank you very much for your support!

Pygmy Survival Alliance Blog: A Smooth Road

Pygmy Survival Alliance Blog: A Smooth Road

See our progress! 2008-2011

In 2008, Pygmy Survival Alliance began working in the village Bwiza, Rwanda, with a population of about 150 people. At that time, the village was physically close to the capital, Kigali, but the living conditions were dramatically worse. Bwiza residents lived in stick houses and went without eating on a daily basis because of lack of food. Their children were slowly dying of malnutrition, and the adults had almost no hope for the future.

The Community of Potters Health and Development (COPHAD) project started because the leaders of the Community of Potters in Rwanda (Batwa Pygmies) asked us to help them stop the decline in their population. COPHAD empowers people to solve their own problems using their own resources. With the people, we develop a plan that they can do themselves, together with our help.

COPHAD applies broad methods to a specific, critical focus: to find and address the root causes of poverty and illness and reverse them. We have focused on inexpensive interventions with a big impact -- our first project being the distribution of cheap, blue plastic shoes to everyone. Even now, we are sometimes known in Bwiza as the people who "taught the pygmies to wear shoes".

We had no clue that those shoes would not only help children to attend school and women to work in the market; but also, to help women gain equality, and to reverse the longstanding cultural prejudice historically maintained by Bwiza's neighbors against the villagers.

COPHAD saves lives, improves the welfare of the poorest people in one of the poorest countries of the world, and is both affordable and sustainable. After three years in Bwiza, we are on the verge of establishing food security -- and that comes after we have already achieved universal health insurance, 100% primary school enrollment, total restoration of traditional dance and performance traditions, rising standards of living and remarkably, even gender equality. Sixty new brick house are now being built in a collaborative partnership with the government of Rwanda and Bwiza's surrounding neighbors. And, the people of Bwiza have become the only certified agricultural cooperative in Rwanda based in a former Batwa community. They are first pygmies to ever own cows.

In Bwiza, COPHAD used humanitarian aid, public health, education, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, agriculture, the arts and business to create a positive change cycle leading to reduced infant mortality through enhanced socio-cultural adaptation. The result has been to unlock human potential and transform peoples’ lives.

Services delivered and outcomes achieved by Bwiza villagers 2008-2011
COPHAD Provided Services	BWIZA Delivered Outcomes
Shoes	New access to market and school
School uniforms	5 children started school; now all are in primary; 2 in secondary
Village Health and Development Council	First-time village leadership structure and performance with ongoing leadership training
“Mutuelle” Health Insurance Cards	First-time attendance at Health Centers and Health Care, now with women routinely seeking pre-natal and delivery care in a supported health center
De-worming + Vitamin A supplementation	First-time decreased incidence of diarrhea; improved health, school attendance and energy levels
Health education: sanitation & hygiene	Built five latrines, began hand washing practices; now overall visible improvement in hygiene of the people
44 Plastic roof tarps	44 stick houses re-built with new roofs
Nutritional Supplements	First-time amelioration of kwashiorkor in vulnerable infants
Manure for gardens, plus seeds	Better gardens and crop yields; reduced food insecurity
Micro-finance planning	New business initiatives, creating 5-person trading partnerships to trade in goat skins and vegetables
Technical Assistance to dig a surface well and build water collection tanks	Healthier water, more productive use of time, better water available for goats and cows
Liaison with Ministry of Agriculture	Started rock quarry; sold dump trucks full of stone daily
Hoes, shovels, pickaxes	Built 62 farming terraces; crop yield = 1 ton beans in first year; even greater yields thereafter
Liaison with US Embassy, Kigali	Pygmy song and dance troupe “KWIZERA” organized and performing; now, new CD produced and distribution ongoing
Monitoring and Evaluation Services	Data-driven basis for program development; post-intervention survey ongoing June 2011
Creation and training of “ABAHUZA” Cooperative	Leadership training, financial management, business and agricultural education
Liaison with Executives of the Cell, Sector, District and Ministry of Local Government	Partnership relationship for housing construction and future spread of COPHAD development methods to other poor Rwandan communities
Liaison with Heifer International	Donation of animal husbandry curriculum
Coordination of multiple donor groups	Establishment of goat herd; now with over 96 goats. Introduction of cows; now with 11 cows.
Compressed-earth brick machine	Thousands of bricks made to build new houses