Jérôme Kayiranga and a Community-driven Model of Sustainable Farming

Behind the success of our fruit and vegetable garden at the Community Learning Center and Library stands Jérôme, the village leader of the last three years, who is also trained as an agronomist. Jérôme has committed himself to bi-weekly community service with REAP where he supervises small teams of community members and demonstrates modern farming techniques. This past season, our half acre garden was producing in surplus! The abundant, crisp cabbages and fresh green peppers were able to be sold to local schools for mealtimes.

This means REAP and its dedicated volunteers are on track to meet our goal of self-financing the agriculture programming, and generating income with agriculture sales by 2020. Through a combination of vegetable sales, and community service, we have been able to make leaps forward toward financial self-sufficiency. In the near future, the garden has the capability to contribute its profits to the cost of running REAP’s Community Learning Center and Library.