See how donor support helped farmers in Rwanda adapt to drought, grow food year-round, and build lasting income through climate-smart irrigation.
Last holiday season, your generosity helped us launch a new chapter of our work in Rwanda, supporting farmers facing growing uncertainty from climate change, drought, and shrinking aid budgets.
Over the past year, Rwanda’s farming communities have faced compounding challenges. Prolonged dry spells—especially in Eastern Rwanda—have reduced rain-fed harvests and household savings. At the same time, major international donors pulled back agricultural programs across the region, removing services that many rural families relied on.
Instead of stepping away, your support allowed us, and our longtime local partner KickStart International, to step in.
With your support, KickStart focused on what lasts: building a local, farmer-led irrigation market that doesn’t disappear when donor programs end.
Two new field officers, Phionah Kirabo and Jean Claude Dusengimana, spent months on the ground. They listened to farmers, ran pump demonstrations, and helped families understand how irrigation could change what was possible for their farms and incomes.
Together, they helped establish 20 rural retail outlets, creating, for the first time, local places where farmers can see, test, and purchase irrigation pumps without waiting for subsidies or outside aid. They paired this face-to-face work with mobile outreach—using SMS, WhatsApp, and social media—to reach a new generation of farmers where they already get information.
So far, 46 farmers have acquired irrigation pumps through this effort—right in line with early targets for year one.
Each of these farmers can now:
In a year defined by scarcity, these farmers are producing food and income—not just for their own households, but for their communities.
Your generosity is helping lay the foundation for a program designed to ultimately support hundreds of farming families—and thousands of people—by building systems that endure.
This is what sustainable change looks like:
Thank you for making this possible. We’re excited to keep sharing how your support continues to grow food, income, and opportunity across Rwanda.
This holiday season, your gift creates jobs that empower communities to work their way out of poverty — and it's doubled thanks to the Sunny Morning Fund.
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