Our Rwandan beans come from Kinini Coffee, which was founded by Jacquie Turner and Malcom Clear. Before turning their attention to coffee, Jacquie and Malcom founded 'A New Beginning' in Musenyi.
Jacquie's parents were from the Musenyi village, and Jacquie wanted to help the situation there around deprivation, lack of schooling and basic medicine.
Malcolm is from the UK, but met Jacquie through Jacquie's late husband. He helped Jacquie's plan to build new beginnings come to fruition with various fundraising and events to get it off the ground.
A New Beginning was established in 2008 with the goal to assist a group of Rwandan citizens, predominantly widows and orphans displaced during the genocide in 1994 and now resettled by the Rwandan Government in an area of uncultivated savannah, to speed the pace of economic development within the community and to achieve economic self-sufficiency and self-governance within five years.
The organisation focuses on helping these individuals rebuild their lives and find hope for the future. By offering various forms of aid, such as shelter, education, healthcare, and livelihood support, "A New Beginning" strives to empower and uplift those affected by the tragic events of the genocide, providing them with opportunities for a brighter and more secure future.
During Phase One of the project, which covered 2009/10, an infrastructure of a community’s centre school and health post have been put place has been put in place to realise their fundamental human rights to basic education, healthcare and welfare and to harness their latent ability to work together as a community.
During Phase Two, starting January 2011, they were helped to achieve self-sufficiency by the end of 2013 through ongoing investment by A New Beginning in educational, health, training and natural resources, serving the entire community, run on environmentally sound principles and designed for wealth creation by making maximum use of locally –available materials and community labour.
The fundraising has also paid for the construction of a borehole, which provides clean drinking water to the village and surrounding areas. This water is essential to avoid malaria, the deadliest disease in the country.
Before the bore hole was constructed, the water had to be boiled to become safe to drink, however people would also go to a nearby reservoir to get water which was contaminated with disease from cattle.
The health centre now provides services for 25000 people in the area, before this health centre was built, the nearest treatment for injury or disease was a 20km walk.
New beginnings also has a community centre hall which is used for weddings and funerals.
