Augustin Nzabana is the founder and director of ACHUT, a local Tours and Travel company that specialises in cultural and humanitarian tour packages.

After dropping out of school during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, he got a job with a humanitarian organization based in Nyamasheke.

Since then, he has worked with several other NGOs, all in managerial positions. In 2000, he decided to start something of his own, and has never looked back, writes Moses Opobo…

Where were you during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi?

I was at the National University of Rwanda, in Huye where I was studying applied science and engineering.

Because of the genocide, I was forced to drop out.

Then I got work as an administrator for German Emergency Doctors in Nyamasheke. Here I worked for one year, then joined Concern Worldwide as a camp manager managing three camps at a go; a Burundian refugee camp in Bugarama, near the border with the DRC, the Banyamulenge refugee camp for refugees, and Bugarama way station for Rwandan returnees from Burundi and the DRC.

By that time I had already received training in the Sphere project, an initiative that helped people involved in disaster management to set minimum standards of the package they should provide to people affected by disasters.

Basing on that experience, I was promoted to the position of Humanitarian Technical Advisor for Concern Worldwide in the DRC, but based in Burundi.

In 1999, I came back to Rwanda to represent Concern in the former Cyangugu, now Rusizi. The following year, I resigned my job because I wanted to go back to school, but because I had a family to look after, I thought of creating an income-generating project first.

I launched the first tour company, STS Karisimbi (Student and Tourist Services Karisimbi) in 2004, which I ran for two years. In this time we planned to start a school training people in customer care, besides providing tour and travel services, but because of financial constraints the idea did not materialize.

However we managed to open a guest house, the Karisimbi Guest House, in Musanze town. In partnership with Ethiopian Airlines and Satguru Travel, we provided tourists with Tour and Travel services.

Later I thought about going back to school because the business was already up and running.

I went to (School of Finance and Banking) where I majored in Marketing and even emerged the best student that year. I finished in 2009, and graduated in March 2010.

In 2013, I started thinking about my background and biography–the fact that since 1994 after the genocide, I had worked for NGOs in managerial positions. That was the beginning of the idea for ACHUT Tours and Travel.

Tell us more about ACHUT

It stands for Action for Cultural and Humanitarian Tourism. It is a new approach because it’s very rare to see people who do business and charity work at the same time. Most businesses start with only the money-making motive, and later on when they’ve achieved their financial goals is when they start to think of charity.

My idea was to mix the two from the beginning, and it worked. We do cultural tourism –that is, selling our culture through handcrafts, traditional dances and drumming. 

Unknown to most people, the humanitarian aspect can also serve as a tourist attraction. There are people who just want to look at humanitarian activities –to see poor people and how they live, either for the sake of it, or with a view to helping out in one way or another. 

They want to be a part of it, to be active and offer voluntary work simply because they derive satisfaction from it.

They may go to a host family and cook, stay or sleep with them, or go digging.

Most of them are attracted to causes dedicated to women and children, for whom they may help to pay health insurance or scholarships to school. We work with local authorities to identify the people that are most in need.

Basically we facilitate linkages between tourists and ordinary people.

The future

We want to grow ACHUT into the region. So far, we have secured a partner in Nairobi, two in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam and Arusha), and are in contact with another from Zanzibar. We have two partners in Uganda, and one in Burundi. Currently we are operating with them on franchise terms, but looking to opening offices there soon.