They served the kings as blacksmiths. Their activities were mainly making spears and hoes for the King. A veteran blacksmith Joseph Rwandanga recounts the story.

In 1929, the year he was born, blacksmiths were common in Gishamvu community.

Rwandanga, 86, is also the initiator of the blacksmith centre in Gishamvu Sector that was set up in 1977, in a remote area which used to be part of Gishamvu Commune in the current Huye District.

Some of the senior Gishamvu blacksmiths are deceased, but they passed on the skills to their offsprings before dying.

They operate under COFOGI, a blacksmiths’ cooperative, which makes products like hoes, rakes, candle stands, shields, various ornaments and embroidered spears, among others.

They also produced the various spears displayed in the Ethnographic Museum in Huye.

The president of the cooperative, Jean Bosco Havugimana, 37, said the work benefits its members but there was need to modernise and increase their operations.

"The lowest paid employee in the cooperative gets Rwf45,000 per month, others get Rwf70,000 and even more, but our work needs a revamp,” he told The New Times.

The cooperative decries insufficient and rudimentary equipment, which slows down productivity.

"Blacksmithing is our main economic activity and we live by it. I fulfill the needs of my family using the revenues I get,” said Egide Hakizimana, Rwandanga’s son.

Havugimana said sometimes they get orders from customers but lack enough products to meet the demand owing to lack of enough labour force.

The cooperative has products in 10 warehouses countrywide mainly in Kigali and has stands in some art houses.

"Our clients like our products because they are even more durable than imported ones,” he added.

The Director General of Industry and SMEs at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Alexis Ruzibukira, said they were ready to support entrepreneurs.

"They should come and tell us about their activities or we can visit them if need be to better understand how we can support them. It is our responsibility to endorse community processing, but we have to understand which category we can classify them in after knowing well what they do and its significance to the country,” he said.

"MINICOM endorses entrepreneurship and the blacksmiths worked traditionally for many years. What we can assist them in is to assess whether they have modern equipment for the production process, what we can do to improve their skills, among others. We can also assess their challenges, be it infrastructure or metal-related issues,” he said.

The cooperative which started in 1997 with 23 members got accredited in 2004 and now has 34 registered members and is training 16 youths.

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