The youth of the community-based Rotaract Club of Kigali Institute Education, currently part of University of Rwanda have completed the first phase of the club's initiative to build 13 community kitchen gardens in villages in Kimisagara Sector, Nyarugenge District.

The initiative was inspired by their zeal to combat malnutrition and stunting among children under the age of five.

On Saturday December 4, they completed nine community kitchen gardens in the villages including Mugina, Akishuri, Ubumwe, and Uruyange, among others.

In implementing this project, they were joined by Kimisagara Youth Volunteers.

Members of the Rotaract Club also donated gardening tools such as watering cans, forks, and various vegetable seeds such as carrots, amaranthus, spinach, and beetroots to Groupe Scolaire Kimisagara, where three gardens were set up to help in fighting poor feeding among students. 

The youth also mobilised one tonne of porridge flour which contains balanced diets that the children require for better development. The flour which was mobilised from different corporate companies will be distributed to families to fight malnutrition and the consequent child stunting.

Meanwhile, during the hand over of the kitchen gardens, youth members of the Kigali Chelsea FC Fan Club who supported the rotarians on finalising the project, paid for medical insurance (Mutuelle de Sante) for these children allowing them to be monitored more often by doctors.

The emotional activity was attended by among others Peter Vrooman, ambassador of US in Rwanda, who is also a member of Rotary Club Kigali Virunga and Emmy Ngabonziza, the District Executive Administrator for Nyarugenge among others.

In his speech, Vrooman assured that this was just one among many activities the club plans on doing.

"We will keep working hand in hand with everyone who is willing to leave a positive impact,” he said.

The president of the KIE Rotaract club, Felix Mihigo noted that the youth were willing to go to any length to improve their communities.

"Whether its fighting malnutrition or other issues in our communities, we will continue to give our contribution as young people,” he noted, adding that not all community challenges should be left to the government to solve.

What's more exciting is that we have young people like you who are eager to contribute to the development of our country, he added.

"The future is really bright,” he added, "because we have young people like you who take the lead in addressing problems like malnutrition”.