Ikirezi and the Together Partnership are working together to actively put our charitable objectives into action. TTP has provided a great deal of sponsorship in kind to Ikirezi including business consultancy, design services and mentoring.

Ikirezi Natural Products is positively exploiting one of Rwanda’s few economic advantages: an ideal climate to grow plants to be distilled into high-value essential oils. Their business plan is ambitious, detailed and based on two years of extensive field trials.

Ikirezi, created and led by Edinburgh University graduate Nicholas Hitimana, has created a group of co-operatives, enabling the workers to be full partners in the venture. At present the company works with 800 widows and orphans in three different farms, its role being to mobilise, organise, transfer technology to farmers, buy raw material from them, process it into essential oils, market the oils, and plough the benefits back into the community.

It takes six months after planting to harvest the first geranium leaf material, plus 2-3 months for field preparation. The widows and orphans are often in poor health (many are HIV/Aids victims) and traditionally depend on subsistence farming to make a living. So they can’t wait 8-9 months for the geranium’s first harvest, and prefer to abandon this potentially more remunerative business to work for a more immediate source of income.

Ikirezi has identified two areas where additional funding is essential. First, extra money would allow widows to hire help to do the heavy preparation work, thus shortening this period. Secondly, extra funding could provide them with an income while they wait for the geranium harvest.