Survivors Fund (SURF) works in partnership with Iwacu Productions to bring high-quality handicrafts for sale in the UK, including a stunning range of necklaces, bracelets and other jewellery through the Rwandan Beauty website. On our recent visit to Rwanda we met the group, and its founder Clementine Munezero, to film the work that they are undertaking as well as to interview Clementine to learn more about it.

We will be publishing the film next year as part of our 25th Anniversary Campaign in April 2019 (marking 25 years on from the start of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda) to tell the story of how the survivors of the genocide, such as Clementine, have rebuilt their lives in the aftermath as well as the challenges they still face today. Ahead of the publication, we are publishing extracts of interviews, such as that with Daphrose, a widow of the genocide, and include here a short extract of the interview with Clementine, as well as a link to the Rwandan Beauty website, through which the handicrafts produced by Iwacu Productions can be sourced.

My name is Clementine. I am a handicrafts maker. We are a women’s group. We have two categories of women. We have genocide widows, and genocide orphans. The idea for making the beads came from the group. For 3 years we had been making lapel badges to commemorate the victims of the genocide. After that period, we decided to make jewellery with beads. We were taught by AVEGA. We buy beads from America, and make bracelets, necklaces, earrings. They did not have any market in Rwanda to sell the handicrafts. So with the help of SURF we are selling our jewellery in the UK.

 

To see the full range of high-quality handicrafts produced by Iwacu Productions, including a stunning range of necklaces, bracelets and other jewellery, and to support the widows and orphans of the genocide who make them, then please visit their website and consider making a purchase: