Francois who graciously allowed us into his day explains several points

further explanations..

Making sure that he gets his points across.

Ben tries his hand at tilling, albeit for a very short time.

In seeking to understand the youth’s customer more, the team sought a different approach to gaining insights. What are the customer’s points of pain? Are they even aware of this pain or have they become too accustomed to it. How do we find this out? What opportunities can the youth then exploit in trying to ease the pain and fill a latent need? One of the team members set off to spend a day with a farmer to accomplish this. It was an interesting and different experience for him even though he had grown up on a rural farm. Out of this we discovered several points that the youth could help ease the effort energy,, capital, and time that the farmer expends trying to compensate for the shortfalls in value addition and delivery.. Amongst the points was the amount of milk that is wasted due to the farmer not being able to sell it all on a day to day basis.

Hercules! Hercules!

One of the workers at the brick and tile-making cooperative

Busy at work.

The team gets to observe the process at a close range.

Gathering more insights.

The rest of the team visited a banana cooperative, a brick and tile-making cooperative, and did a youth focus group session.  They were taken through the process of beer making, where they observed the brick making from clay to the final brick. They also saw first hand the hazards of the venture when a heavy storm washed away the previous day’s clay bricks output worth over 5 days of earnings. The team also conducted a youth focus group trying to understand how they (youth) started a business; qualified for a loan or other capital I sources.

It doesn’t look like Anne will be leaving Rwanda anytime soon.

So here we are, quickly approaching the end of our stay in Kigali Rwanda but having already fallen in love with the place.