Located in Mayange, 40 kilometers south of Kigali in Bugesera District, Rwanda’s Millennium Village is part of an innovative project designed to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The goals focus on reducing extreme poverty and hunger, as well as improving education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability. A partnership between the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the arth Institute at Columbia University, Millennium Promise, national and local governments, and a variety of other partners, the Millennium Villages Project invests in healthcare, education, agriculture and infrastructure in some of Africa’s poorest communities. After suffering disproportionately from deforestation, erratic rainfall and genocide, Mayange was a natural choice for this targeted investment in Rwanda.

Millennium Villages exist in ten countries throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, including Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Malawi. Rwanda’s Millennium Village, however, is the only village offering a community-based tour that provides both an in depth introduction to the project’s interventions, and a sustainable income generating activity for local residents. The Millennium Village Tour was pioneered in collaboration with New Dawn Associates (NDA), a Kigali-based social enterprise committed to responsible and educational tourism. The experience begins with an introduction to the project’s history and key concepts, delivered by a knowledgeable Rwandan guide on the 45-minute drive to Bugesera. Upon arrival in the district, participants visit the Nyamata memorial church to begin to grasp the horror that occurred in 1994. Visitors then proceed to a primary school, the health clinic, at least one farm, and a women’s weaving cooperative. At each stop they learn about the successes and ongoing challenges from the individuals directly affected by the project’s interventions.

Regardless of a participant’s previous exposure to an integrated development initiative such as the Millennium Villages Project, the full-day excursion has tremendous educational value. Development novices walk away with a deeper understanding of the theory behind investing in a series of holistic interventions to help villagers break through the poverty trap. Experienced students or professionals capitalize on the opportunity to expand their country specific knowledge and speak face to face with some of the project’s 25,000 beneficiaries. All visitors are captivated, moved, and ultimately enriched by the cultural aspects of the program itinerary, which include a delicious local lunch and an opportunity to learn more about the process of healing the wounds left by the genocide.

For groups of seven or more participants, the excursion closes with a visit to the village of unity and reconciliation, where survivors of the genocide live peacefully alongside perpetrators and returnees. After hearing testimony from community members, the visitors are treated to an ubusabane, or local get together, that features food and traditional dancing. For smaller groups, participants can hear insights into the reconciliation process during an intimate visit to an individual’s home. The locals who volunteer for this exchange are financially compensated for their time and participation.

In fact, the system of compensation is what makes the Millennium Village Tour not only an educational excursion, but a chance to contribute to local economic development and empowerment. New Dawn Associates operates a profit sharing mechanism that ensures that at least 70% of the profits from all tours directly benefit the community partner. In the case of the Millennium Village, this means that funds are also distributed directly to a local guide, the Nyamata memorial, the farmers visited, and the dancers who perform at the village of unity and reconciliation. In addition, 2,000 RWF per visitor automatically goes to a community fund, although many large groups of delegates are moved to contribute more. The community has identified education and health initiatives as priorities for the fund, but it may also be used in the future to support enterprise development. Members of the tourism cooperative are discussing the idea of using money from the fund to finance the construction of Mayange’s first restaurant, a step that would not only please residents and generate local jobs, but also keep tourism dollars within the village, as visitors currently eat lunch in the neighboring sector.

Since the Millennium Village Tour began in June of 2007, the community has welcomed more than 500 visitors and received approximately 7,000,000 RWF, or $12,500 US, in direct community benefit. However, this figure does not begin to account for the increase in sales of hand-woven baskets at the Imirasire basket weaving cooperative, or measure the donations, both physical and monetary, that visitors have given following a life-changing experience in the Millennium Village. The pride and joy of Mayange B Primary School, for instance, is a classroom boasting fourteen desktop computers, ten of which were donated by a former tourist.

Ultimately, the Millennium Village Tour and the four other community-based excursions offered by New Dawn Associates are about helping visitors look beyond Rwanda’s traditional tourist offerings into the lives of its citizens, and perhaps even inside themselves. As the writer Maya Angelou once said, “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” With friendship, we may even become closer partners for progress.

For more information or to book a tour contact:
New Dawn Associates
info@newdawnassociates.com
www.newdawnassociates.com
+250 0533 2003 +250 0533 3652