A project run by MONIELO with the support of RC-Fleurus.
The cooperative Les Femmes Fortes — the Strong Women — will carry a wider economic project, so that these women can sell what they grow without anxiety and, wherever possible, process it and add value to it.
Looking for ways to address women's poverty, we turned to the farmland available around Kinshasa. In the outlying areas of the city, where most people live rurally, women carry much of the economic and social weight.
The cooperative will allow them to learn new skills, to master new techniques, and to be paid properly for their work.
It should also make trade easier. Every year, several tonnes of cassava are lost for want of processing and transport. Through the cooperative Les Femmes Fortes, that harvest will be bought from growers at a competitive price, because it is destined to be processed.
A further aim of the cooperative is to give women the means to raise their incomes through better techniques — growing more, processing more, and selling more cassava products (chikwangue, cassava flour, gari and the rest),
