Soy Cooperative: Helping Impoverished Women in Mushaka
By Joey Anchondo
Above: "The cooperative is important because we are helping the community and we are helping ourselves also," says Uwamariya Chantal, a mother of four from the sector of Nzahaha. She is pictured with her two and a half year old son, Emmanuel.
Left: Kamugwera Berthe, left, pounds boiled soy beans with a mortar
and pestle as part of the first step in producing soy milk. Two of Berthe's three children are in the "red zone" of malnourishment. Above: Uwumukiza Julliette, left, pounds boiled soy beans with a mortar and pestle as part of the first step in producing soy milk. Julliette is a subsistence farmer of beans and cassava, and a mother of 8. She hopes that the income from the soy milk will help pay for her children's secondary school fees. She has hopes for her eldest daughter to become a nurse. |
Above Left: Kamugwera Berthe, pounds boiled soy beans with a mortar and pestle as part of the first step in producing soy milk. Two of Berthe's three children are in the "red zone" of malnourishment.
Above Right: Three year old Nigena Wazieri watches as his mother, Mukamerego Drephine pounds boiled soy beans.
Above Right: Three year old Nigena Wazieri watches as his mother, Mukamerego Drephine pounds boiled soy beans.
Above: Soy milk is strained from the pounded beans through a rice sack.
Below: A woman mixes the soy milk after straining it through a rice sack.
Below: A woman mixes the soy milk after straining it through a rice sack.
Above Left: Uwumukiza Julliette tends to the fire that boils the soy milk. Above Right: Woman from the soy milk cooperative hang out with their children at the health center in Mushaka. Right: Nyangirimana Jeanette, a subsistence farmer of corn and beans, left, talks with health volunteer Claire Brosnihan as they prepare the soy milk for sale. |
Above: Uwumukiza Julliette pours the soy milk into jerry cans before taking them to the market. Julliette is a subsistence farmer of beans and cassava, and a mother of 8. She hopes that the income from the soy milk will help pay for her children's secondary school fees. She hashopes for her eldest daughter to become a nurse.
Below Left: Uwumukiza Julliette serves mugs of fresh, hot soy milk to customers near the market in Gishoma.
Below Right: Health volunteer Claire Brosnihan, left, greets a woman at the market in Gishoma as the soy milk cooperative opens for its first day of business.
Below Left: Uwumukiza Julliette serves mugs of fresh, hot soy milk to customers near the market in Gishoma.
Below Right: Health volunteer Claire Brosnihan, left, greets a woman at the market in Gishoma as the soy milk cooperative opens for its first day of business.
Above: Women from the soy milk cooperative in Mushaka sit in their shop as their first customer sips his hot cup of soy milk.