Cleaning Up.

Finding good income generating activities that are simple enough to undertake in the refugee camps is not easy.

But thanks to one of our ARC Rwanda staff, we found this man, Toucasse, who is a local soap entrepreneur.

He was willing to share his knowledge with some of our refugee groups, and yesterday we completed two days of training on the theory and practice of making liquid soap and shampoo.

Today the groups are working on their marketing plan.

One of the men in the group decided to demonstrate the shampoo by trying it out in front of the others, and as you can see, it seems to have worked quite well!

This should be a great activity for the twenty people in the group, not only for the income that they can generate but also for the knowledge that they gain and the opportunity that they have to help make the camp a cleaner place.

"I Am A Farmer."

This man lives at the very far end of Kiziba Camp, in a neighborhood called Nyabishoro. His house is far from the services in the camp--the health center, food distribution, and the school--but where he lives he is able to rent a small plot of land from the local population for the equivalent of about $20 per year.

And for him, this is a good thing because, as he told me, "I am a farmer."

And an extension agent in Congo, knowledgeable about vegetables and fruit trees and livestock. Here you see him proudly holding up some leeks and red onions from his terrace garden and picking passion fruits from the vine that he has trained to grow over his house, high where the children can't reach. They have to wait for him to pick the fruit and share it with them, which he does often.

In the coming year we are going to be putting great emphasis on these kinds of small agricultural projects that are so important in the camps and yet somewhat challenging in a place like Kiziba where land is scarce.

But we have some good examples, like this man, who will gladly share his love of the land with his neighbors.