In the hills of Rwamagana District, Rwanda, a group of 42 people set out to restore degraded land and ended up building a business. Duterimbere, meaning ‘those who move forward together’, began as a community-led tree nursery under the TREPA Project and has since grown into a self-sustaining enterprise with two permanent employees, collective savings and access to affordable credit for its members.
Their story shows what happens when environmental restoration is paired with financial inclusion. Members trained in nursery techniques and agroforestry also learned to save, invest and access formal financial services, often for the first time. The result is a group that has reinvested its own profits into new nurseries, created seasonal jobs and given individual members, from a young single mother to a veteran nursery technician, the means to support their households on their own terms.
TREPA is a Green Climate Fund initiative implemented by IUCN in partnership with the Rwanda Forestry Authority, CIFOR-ICRAF, World Vision Rwanda and Cordaid, aiming to restore 60,000 hectares across seven districts of Rwanda’s Eastern Province. Cordaid leads on access to finance, helping communities like Duterimbere turn new skills into lasting income.
In this brochure, you can read Duterimbere’s story and see how restoring landscapes can have a great impact on communities.