Rwanda Sholi

Abateraninkunga ba Sholi (“Sholi”) Cooperative, meaning “Mutual Assistance,” is located in Muhanga district, Southern Province, in the center of Rwanda, about halfway between Kigali and Lake Kivu. Established in 2008, Sholi has been producing coffee for nearly a decade, and the Cooperative’s name speaks to its members working together to improve both their coffee and the greater community. Sholi was borne out of a women’s association called “Kundwa”, which means “love” in Kinyarwanda. Today, over one-third of Sholi's 619 producers are women.

With the nearest health facility being over 18 km away on poor roads, in 2016 the Sholi Cooperative applied for and received a grant that funded the building of a health center within their community. This local health center includes a small pharmacy, room for basic first aid, a staffed nurse, family planning services, blood testing, and treatment for malaria, parasites, and respiratory infection. Additionally, the Sholi community has received grants from Café Feminino Foundation, a women and children’s nutrition program in the community, where children ages 2 to 5 who are identified as susceptible to malnutrition attend the program 4 days a week for 9 months and receive fortified porridge, learn simple counting and songs, and parents attend monthly educational meetings. They've also started a community transformation program for 70 young single mothers aged from 18-25, teaching them how to save, starting small savings and credit groups, and gifting them a collective coffee field. Any of the cherries sold to the cooperative from that field go directly to the women.

Despite facing climate change-related disasters, such as extreme flooding, hail damaging coffee flowering season, and unseasonable drought, Sholi has continued to invest in its long-term agriculture, and expanded from planting 18,000 trees in 2016 to 185,000 trees in 2022. The cooperative offers free Bourbon seedlings to members, and have a second, smaller washing station to accommodate members that live farther away from the main washing station.

Coffee processing at Sholi is similar to other coffee cooperatives in Rwanda. After coffee cherries are delivered to the washing station, the coffee is pulped. The lower grades (A3 and A4) are dried and sold to the local market. The two higher grades (A1 and A2) are dry-fermented for 12-18 hours, depending on the climate, then soaked. After soaking the wet parchment is hand-picked on covered raised beds for 24 hours (“pre drying”) before being moved to the drying beds, where they dry over 21-25 days depending on the weather.