As an organization dedicated to saving gorillas, it may seem surprising that the Fossey Fund devotes a significant portion of its work to helping communities and people in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, this holistic approach prioritizes the well-being of people because it also helps ensure the safety of gorillas and their ecosystems. We know that for gorillas to thrive, local communities must also thrive.
For more than two decades, our community engagement programs have tackled the challenges of food security and lack of livelihoods through programs like kitchen gardens, mushroom cooperatives, village savings-and-loans programs, and conservation education. These programs help people and at the same time reduce their need to obtain food or other resources from the nearby forests.
The Fossey Fund’s Jeanette Manirafasha leads a training session for one of the 25 villages in the first year of our new program.
This year in Rwanda we have exciting news, as we have begun the process of reaching thousands more people through an innovative program that targets whole villages. “In the past, our community work focused primarily on households, but with this new village-based model, we are able to greatly scale up the number of people who can be part of and benefit from our work,” says Dr. Tara Stoinski, president and CEO/chief scientific officer of the Fossey Fund.
Why the village model works
We are now partnering with an experienced livelihood development organization – Spark Microgrants – which has implemented more than 1,800 successful projects like this internationally over the past decade, reaching more than 660,000 people.
The model we are using relies on indigenous Rwandan organizing practices and involves training sessions to ensure the long-term success of the project, including identifying shared priorities, electing leadership committees, and managing finances. We’ve also added climate and conservation-specific components to the process, to aim for livelihood programs that are conservation friendly and able to help with community adaptation to climate change.
After planning and training, villages implement their livelihood initiatives, such as agricultural or animal husbandry projects, with ongoing technical assistance and support throughout the year. We’ve already reached 25 villages in this first year, with plans to begin facilitating 25 additional villages next spring. Additionally, we have won support of the district governments, who are contributing financially toward each village project.
Communities are developing their own livelihood projects in villages near the park.
“One of the many things I love about this project is that it involves close collaboration across our programs at the Fossey Fund. While our community engagement team leads the initiative in the community, our field teams are monitoring the impact in the forest through collecting data on illegal activities. We are optimistic that by reducing people’s dependency on the forest, we’ll see snare trends decreasing and communities thriving,” says Dr. Stoinski.
The Elsa & Peter Soderberg Charitable Foundation has played a pivotal role in this initiative, with a $100,000 pilot grant that funds the first group of 25 villages. They are also offering two matching grants of $50,000 to help bring in additional donors that will enable us to reach 25 more villages next year.
