Notes From the Field- Blue Chip Foundation & VII Association Documentary, Part I: Rwanda

Mayange, Rwanda- July 16-20, 2015: In the first leg of the Documentary that Blue Chip and VII Photo are creating together was in Mayange with VII Photo Founder, Photographer Gary Knight. We happened to be there for the Millennium Promise end-of- year retreat, which helped the photographers get a larger sense of the project as a whole. With us in Mayange, a village of about 23,000 people, were Gary’s wife, Fiona Turner, Jeff Sachs, Delphin Muhizi, Chantal Uwingabiye, and all of the MVP Team Leaders including Donald Ndahiro of Mayange,.

To tell the story of how the MVP had affected this cluster of four villages, we interviewed Ndahiro and filmed him as he showed us around Mayange. We also interviewed the Team Leaders of the other three villages I’ll be documenting this year as well as MVP’s head of East Africa, Belay Begashaw and West Africa, Amadou Niang. We also interviewed Jeff Sachs in the field and then we spent a couple days interviewing local women leaders that had been with the project since it’s inception. Gary, Fiona, and I were all impressed that the national government of Rwanda hold an unprecedented 64% women in the Rwanda’s Parliament. More than any other country. We wanted to reflect on the local level as well.

The Millennium Villages Project says that: “When the Project started, nearly one in five children (in Mayange) died before the age of five, and the only health center serving the four villages had no running water, electricity or medicine. Primary schools were overcrowded, with classes as big as 80 children.”

Mayange now, of all of the places we documented, is the most successful example of what the Project can accomplish. You could see an absolute difference from when it started. Everybody is living a completely different life, with little sign of poverty. The health clinics are thriving and abundant, there is gender equality in schools and in businesses, there is clean water in the community, computers are being used in schools… all of the things that will make a more successful region. Photographer Gary Knight focused on highlighting the fresh paint on the buildings, the rows of jeans to choose from at the local market, and the confidence of the men in a welder’s Co-Op to highlight the regions rise from poverty.

Mayange has a huge cassava factory that has helped the local economy. I did a documentary in Mayange in 2012, when they were building a new, large scale cassava plant, and it was wonderful to see it fully functioning and thriving when we returned for the VII documentary in 2015. Not only that, but the government is scaling up this intervention of MVP, and creating five new cassava plants to handle the amount of cassava that needs to be processed for export.

The MVP reports these additional markers of progress:

Business opportunities were created through a new cassava flour plant, honey production, pig and poultry farming, and the establishment of a basket weaving and knitting cooperatives for women.
Mayange is successfully producing and distributing energy efficient cookstoves. Access to improved drinking water has tripled.

Three computer laboratories were installed with 10 new computers each. Two libraries were set up to encourage literacy.
In 2009, more than 96% of births were attended by a skilled health worker, compared to 66.5% in 2006.