American Knitter Turns Dream into Reality for Women in Rwanda

By Susan Ellis, Washington File

Rwanda Knits helps African women build businesses, reclaim their lives

"Making beautiful things lifts the spirit and offers hope, and in Rwanda I really saw it happen," says Cari Clement, an American woman from the state of Vermont who helps African women in Rwanda rebuild their lives by providing machines they use for knitting products for export and domestic sale.

The only fact most Americans know about Rwanda is the genocide that happened there in 1994. But Clement knows it as a beautiful country with intelligent, energetic, smiling women eager to work and support themselves and their families.

Her dream of helping these women through knitting led her to develop a program called Rwanda Knits in 2003.

"The initial donation was of 60 [knitting] machines, accessories and training," she says. "These went to the refugee camps and were donated through UNHCR [Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees]. On my second trip over, in January 2004, we brought an additional 30 machines, which were donated to AVEGA [an association of widows from the genocide] and AVVAIS [an association of widows affected by AIDS]. This comprises the 90 machines, which were donated within the first year," she told the Washington File in a telephone interview.

Clement says Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy deserves much of the credit for getting her project off the ground. When she called him for a letter of support, his aide Tim Reiser mentioned that he was going to Rwanda. She suggested that Reiser go see the Rwanda Knits programs, and "he went to the refugee camp in Gihembe - that's in Byumba province, about an hour from Kigali. And it's just destitute ... dust everywhere, no windows - but everybody came there ready to go to work."

Reiser was so impressed that he told the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officials with him that they should fund the program. As a result, Clement, who had been grant-writing for a year, received a $99,000 grant for Rwanda Knits.

USAID and Rwandans and Americans in Partnership, a Rwanda-based nongovernmental agency, announced the grant in June 2005. It funded the establishment of 13 new and ultimately self-sustaining knitting cooperatives throughout Rwanda, providing each group with 40 knitting machines, accessories, yarn and training. Some also were trained and equipped to finish knitted goods for export, including embellishing (embroidery, crochet, etc.), labeling, inspecting, packing and preparing export documents.

The Rwandan women were not only fast learners, Clement said, but also extremely persevering, determined to learn everything they could. Within a few months they were producing sweaters, baby items and blankets and selling them in the local markets.

Although many people do not realize it, "It is very cool in Rwanda," Clement said, "especially at night, mostly due to the high elevation." The altitude ranges from 1200 meters to 1800 meters above sea level.

"Africans are also much more susceptible to the cold, especially the babies," she said. "The main competition for the knitted goods domestically will be from used-clothing sellers. We're focusing on babies, since, traditionally, you cannot give a new mother anything used for her baby."

Helping Women Rebuild Their Lives

The first machines Clement donated went to the women of the Kiziba refugee camp in Kibuye, Rwanda. The women who received the second donation included people like Esperance, who was 15 when all her relatives except one were murdered during the 1994 genocide. Esperance escaped into the forest, living alone for weeks and emerging only at night to find food.

Another woman, Jeanette, was raped by 60 soldiers in front of her family. She is haunted not only by the memory, but also by the fact that she is now HIV-positive.

One of the instructors Clement trained is Faraha, a refugee from Congo. Faraha escaped with her family from Congo, but her father was shot on the way to Rwanda. She sends nearly all of what she earns in Rwandan francs back to her family in the refugee camps.

"None of the teachers had any real source of income before the knitting project. They all earn at least what Faraha does and then also make dollars with knitting projects for export," Clement said.

A current project involved their knitting 200 scarves for Diane von Furstenberg, an American fashion designer. Clement also arranged for many of the knitted products to be included in the gift bags for winners at the recent Emmy awards, which honor excellence in U.S. television broadcasting.

Clement says her best experience was in January 2004, "when, accompanied by my 27-year-old daughter, Naima, I returned to the Kiziba refugee camp's women's center. Before we left the U.S., I had continually asked UNHCR if the women had learned the machines and if they were knitting because I had made a significant commitment that they would be able to produce 500 scarves in two weeks for us to put into gift bags for Grammy [an award honoring recording industry achievement] recipients. They really couldn't tell me, but they thought the women had been knitting a bit.

Clement said she and her daughter were apprehensive when they entered the center not knowing if the women had learned to use the machines yet. But the two were greeted with singing and dancing and walls lined with products the women had produced. "The women made 650 scarves in five days," she said.

Over the past 30 months, Clement has worked with about 400 women in Rwanda. The USAID grant will expand her organization's reach to more than 1,000 women.

More information on the Rwanda Knits program can be found on the Web sites of the Fiber and Craft Entrepreneurial Center, the Business Council for Peace and Economic Development Imports.

For information on how U.S. foreign assistance is affecting lives, see Partnership for a Better Life.

Source: U.S. Department of State

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