When you find Donatille Nibagwire relaxing at home with children, you could wrongly conclude that the proprietor a horticulture exporting company, Floris Rwanda, has had it easy since childhood.

It is only when you get closer that scars on her face—from grenades hurled into their house during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi—become visible. This indeed is a permanent reminder of her troubled childhood.

As a child, she witnessed almost all her family members get killed during the 100 days of mayhem. Nibagwire’s early life, just like others who grew up during Rwanda’s darkest times, was thus marred with hatred, segregation, fear and tension perpetuated by the regime of the day.

Born in Kinyinya, currently part of City of Kigali’s Gasabo District in 1970 to Pascazia Mukabaziga and Raphael Gakuba, Nibagwire was the eighth child in a family of ten children. But by the end of the Genocide, she had lost parents, all her six brothers and a sister.

Just like her early life, Nibagwire’s education was also full of trials. She attended Kinyinya Primary School from 1977-1986 and Apade Secondary School for her ordinary level in 1987-1990.

When the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) launched the liberation struggle in 1990, the Habyarimana regime arrested and jailed almost everyone suspected of links with the RPF. At that time, schools turned away Tutsi children and Nibagwire could not stay at Apade Secondary School.

It was one year later when the government relaxed its discriminative policy that Nibagwire enrolled at APRED Ndera for S4 and S6 where the Genocide found her.

After the Genocide, she enrolled at Christ Roi College in Nyanza for secretarial studies. In 1995, she got a job as a secretary in a German company that employed her for five years. Business idea

While working with the German company, Nibagwire saved some money that she used to start her own business in 2001. She says that a lot of things inspired her to venture into this line of business, including her late father’s background as an agronomist and successful farmer. "My father was an agronomist and we liked flowers while growing up as children. I therefore fell in love with nature at a young age,” she said.

By 2001 her love for flowers had matured and felt it was time to do something.

With a capital investment of Rwf300, 000, Nibagwire started her business; initially supplying the domestic market but with eyes fixed on the international market. Three months into the business, she made contacts with foreign clients who wanted her to supply not only flowers but also fruits and vegetables.

It was around the same time that she met a Belgian business partner who was interested in organic bananas.

That marked the start of a lucrative business of exporting sweet bananas to the USA, Canada, France, Belgium, UK and several countries in Europe.

Her dream

Nibagwire’s dream is to keep increasing the number of farmers she works with to grow organic products to thousands and establish more partnerships with foreign buyers. "I have already sent some samples for testing and I am ready to start exporting organic produce to more countries when the markets are ready to receive,” she says.

Nibagwire is looking forward to the time when people will start walking into supermarkets in Europe looking for fresh products from Rwanda.

"I want to leave a legacy behind. I am managing Floris Rwanda in such a way that it will keep growing for generations after me,” she said. She is training her children to take over from her.

She currently works with about 538 farmers to grow organic crops for exports—contributing to poverty alleviation.

About 22 farmers have also been trained to provide technical assistance to producers to ensure quality standards.

Achievements

She says that this business has enabled her acquire a lot of knowledge about farming, international trade etc.

The businesswoman says she has also been to more than 30 countries in the world, courtesy of her business.

Nibagwire however acknowledges that the business of horticulture has many challenges, the biggest being high transport costs. The other cost is the annual export certificate issued by a German company based in Mauritius after inspecting all gardens from which the products are grown.

Besides the cost of transport, she also faces challenges in packaging as she has to import packaging boxes from Uganda and Kenya.

Sad memories 

She says that every time she remembers the way more than one million people were killed in the Genocide, especially her elder sister who was shot as she looked on, she gets sad. Such moments remain fresh in her memories.

She however derives inspiration from her late father, a successful farmer who owned one of the countries model farms from which other Rwandans learned from.