How Isabelle Kamariza Changed Hospital Nutrition in Rwanda | Solid’Africa

In this episode of The Long Form Podcast, Isabelle Kamariza shares the story behind Solid'Africa and the hidden crisis she discovered in Rwanda’s public hospitals: vulnerable patients going without food. 

What began in 2010 as a small effort to feed a few patients has grown into one of Rwanda’s most impactful social enterprises, now serving thousands of medically tailored meals every day across multiple hospitals and schools.

The conversation explores poverty, dignity, healthcare, and why nutrition was overlooked for so long within hospital care systems. Isabelle also reflects on privilege, responsibility, and the challenge of turning compassion into a sustainable national solution through partnerships with the Government of Rwanda. 

This is a powerful discussion about healthcare, food security, inequality, and what it really takes to solve systemic problems in Africa at scale.

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Produced by LF Media 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

This is the focus over. Fix build. You know this is the big thing. One of the long form comes out. Wait, what? The long form. What did it say? The long form.

SPEAKER_06 0:36

The long form. The long form. The long form. This conversation is brought to you by Akagera Medicines, a biotech company that is majority owned by the Ronan people. Akagera Medicines is not only committed to expanding access to healthcare, but also supporting conversations that inform, educate, and empower. Learn more about Akagera Medicines by scanning the QR code on your screen or by visiting their website at Akagueramedicines.com. When people think about healthcare, they think about doctors, hospitals, and medicines. But there's often one thing that's missing from that conversation: food. In Rwanda, thousands of patients are admitted to public hospitals every day. But traditionally, meals are not part of their care. For the most vulnerable, that means often going without. My guest today on the Longform Podcast is Isabel Kamariza, founder of Solid Africa, a social enterprise that today feeds thousands of patients and school children healthy meals every day, Isabel is helping to reshape how we think about healthcare, nutrition, and dignity. But behind Solid Africa's success are harder questions that need answers. Why was something this fundamental overlooked for so long? What does it actually take to build a system that actually works and sustain it? And can a solution like this scale without losing what actually made it work in the first place? This is a conversation about food, but also about systems inequality and what it really takes to solve a problem at scale. Isabel, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Hello.

SPEAKER_06 2:24

Welcome to the Long Farm Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_06 2:27

This is super exciting. This I've been trying to get you since on this podcast since last year.

SPEAKER_05 2:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 2:35

We had I think our first cup of coffee probably around September.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:42

And now we are in April.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

End of April. End of April. Last day of April.

SPEAKER_06 2:47

You've been busy, you've uh tried to get you, you're traveling, you're going to the UK, to Qatar. Always looking for money.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yes. Mostly.

SPEAKER_06 3:01

Let's let's I want to start with a hear the facts. Pain and poverty is everywhere we everywhere you look in Ronda. You know, there's literally there's not a day that you can spend driving around the city or going through our villages where you see you don't see someone who looks hungry or someone who's not well dressed. It's just the fact. It's and it for me sometimes it's it becomes so usual that I stop seeing it. You know, you just you ignore it. It becomes background noise to my life, you know, living in Kigali, trying to deal with paying my children's school fees and trying to run my business. A lot of people don't see others paying. But you have been able to do that. There's a there's a I think in 2010 you your eyes opened because before your heart can open, before you go into action, you have to see something and for and that thing makes you see the world differently. Take us back to that moment back in 2010. What made your heart open? What made your eyes see for the very first time?

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Yeah. I think it was even before 2010. I think it was 29, 2009. And for me, what you are just saying, like you can see people that are not hungry, that are not, you know, that are sleeping in the streets. It's everywhere. It's not just in Rwanda. Because for me, my eyes to open, I was actually in Belgium, in Brussels. And I was there for my studies, I was doing law, dropped out of law school. And one of the things of why I dropped out of law school, I went into an existential crisis. I was like in my early 20s.

SPEAKER_06 5:21

You were 25, 24?

SPEAKER_02 5:23

No, no, I was like, yeah, 24, 23.

SPEAKER_06 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

But the crisis began maybe 22, 2008. It takes a lot of time. And one of my existential crises was about what is this life about?

SPEAKER_06 5:36

What is your life about?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah. Is it for me to have a great job, be a lawyer, have a lot of money, maybe one day find a husband, have children. And that idea that all of it of this life would be about that wasn't satisfactory for me. So I started having like an emptiness about the future of a life that I didn't even have. But just thinking about what my future would be. And I was interning in some law firm and things like that, didn't have a good experience. So all of it putting together, I said to myself, you know, let me drop out. Let me drop out and actually try to find what is meaningful for me.

SPEAKER_06 6:26

To drop out, though. And you can continue. Obviously, someone had paid your school fees.

SPEAKER_05 6:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 6:35

A parent who loved you and wished the best for you.

SPEAKER_05 6:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 6:41

How do you even have the courage to even tell a runner an African dad and an African mom that I'm living in university to figure out my life?

SPEAKER_02 6:53

So my fear wasn't even about dropping school or telling them. Mostly it was about having a plan B because they would have said, okay, if it's not law, what it is? And I didn't have an answer to that question, what it is. So actually, when I dropped out, I hide it. I didn't tell them. I needed that few months to actually understand before going in. I didn't tell them, I didn't tell my sisters. But what I did was, and I wasn't before that, I wasn't like a big Christian, good Christian. I was raised in a semi-catholic way, didn't really like church, didn't really understand all of it. So my relationship with God has always been, I thought God created the world and just was sitting there looking at us. There are rules that are already there, and then it's, you know, you fight, you survive, or you do not. So I would only actually pray when I was in trouble. Yes, when I was in trouble, and then it would pass, and then I would say, ah, I'm the luckiest girl. So what I did was my mom had come, I think, to see us in Brussels where I was a year before. And then she told me, you know, if you ever encounter a problem in this life and you are now starting to be an adult, you can find a solution in this book. So that's the sentence that came to me. What book? The Bible. So I went in a library, bought a Bible, and spent three months. So I was working the whole time. When I was in school, I was working in a restaurant. Back then, I'm managing a restaurant, a Turkish restaurant. So I would go to work and then I will read it. I read it like for three months. Like as you are reading a constitutional book of law. A lot of things I didn't understand, but also there are things I understood. One of the things is in my head, I always thought that I needed to have money to arrive to something to be able to help somebody. And what I understood was in Proverbs somewhere, there's somewhere where they said that this is where you are young that you take risks. Because when you are young, you have the energy, you have less responsibility. The more you grow old, the more responsibility you have. And the less risky you become. So I thought if I have to do something, this is my time. Because it's not when I would have kids and stuff that I will actually find the time. The second thing I understood was at the end of the day, what will be asked of us is who did we clothe, who did we feed, who did we see that was less fortunate than us? Not our family members, not somebody who would come and say thank you, somebody that actually don't even think you're gonna be their solution. And you talk about the noise and the things. So in Brussels, there's the the, I don't know if it's still the case, but 2009, full of homeless people. From each metro station to the other one. So you become part of, you know, they are part of the landscape. You don't even see them. They are just there.

SPEAKER_06 9:54

They're like the birds and the benches.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Exactly. They are just there. You pass by. And I think because I was into reading the Bible and actually understanding and having my heart open, as you said, I started noticing a homeless person next to the metro session. I would go every day. And in that one day, I'm passing, I'm going to work like nobody. And just I look at him, and he looks at me, and it's like we've locked eyes for the first time. And I just realized that this guy is the same guy who's been there for the last two years. Most of the time, I don't even say hi. And I'm coming, and for me, it was kind of I felt shame in the way first that I was raised. We were raised that if you see somebody in the street, it doesn't matter if you know them or you don't know them, you say hi. You don't pass through somebody as if they were not there. So even the fact that every morning I would pass next to that guy, not look at him, not say hi, was already that. But second of all-was he black? No, he was Pakistani. And the second thing was, but now that I saw him, he saw me, what can I do? So I went next to him. It's not that I had an agenda. Went next to him and said hi. And we started talking. So every morning I'll come, say hi, to a joke, learn a little bit about his life, talk about my life, and then I would bring a sandwich. I would make a sandwich, a banana, and then I would have a juice, like those little juice for kids. And I noticed that it was just costing me one euro. And one euro, even as a broke student, it's a coin that you can forget where it was. And I think for me that was my aha moment. Is that I didn't need to have millions to bring him something to eat on a daily basis. So I started telling friends, friends of friends, doing sandwiches in my apartment and saying, if you give me one euro, I can feed somebody.

SPEAKER_06 11:55

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SPEAKER_02 13:30

Yes. I think back then I'm not thinking a lot of how does it feel make me feel. I think for me what it felt, it felt natural. And how it felt was how come did I take that long to actually know that person? For me, that was that. It wasn't about it, it was so easy. Yeah, so easy to have an impact on somebody that every day would accept expect for you to come with something to eat, that sometimes you didn't get anything else to eat. So I got to know a lot about homelessness back at that time. And the first friends I went to, one of my friends, yeah, one of my friends that went to, and I said, Why are you laughing? I'm laughing because it's a long story. But one of my friends that went to see him and I said, you know, one euro, one sandwich. Most of them were laughing, but he said, okay, he gave me 200 euro.

SPEAKER_06 14:30

That's a good friend.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

That's a good no, and especially I went to him because I thought he was, he had the first job, so I thought in all the friends, he's the one who has a bit of money. And I'm laughing because a few years after, I think four or five years, yeah, like yeah, four years, even more, I learned that actually he didn't have the money from his job. He went back home. And because I've been talking about it like for a few days, everywhere we will meet, and then he saw he had a lot of PlayStation and games and things like that. So he said, Oh my God, am I playing when actually people are out there and just to satisfy whatever I want? So he went and sold all of it, and that's the 200 euros. Wow. But it took me years to know me. I thought it was, you know, his first big salary and things like that. So we started making sandwiches by word of mouth. Schools were coding us, saying, you know, we are in holidays, you can come and use our kitchen. So slowly, slowly, it became a whole leader movement in Brussels of young people on Saturday, Sunday going to give meals to homeless people. And especially would go out at night, because at night that's where you find most of the vulnerable ones who didn't who couldn't get into the the shelters.

SPEAKER_06 15:43

Tell me about uh Ahmed. Yes, Ahmad. Ahmad. Yes. Tell me how did he end up? Because you say he was Pakistani, so he's obviously not from there. How did he end up on the streets? Did you get to know his story?

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yes, so a lot of refugees would come. Some would be, I would say, housed in some institution. Some would flee. Some would so him, he didn't have any paper. He was just there. He couldn't leave Brussels and didn't have help in the sense that he didn't have money, he couldn't hire a lawyer, he couldn't seek to have a better situation or see how he can legalize his situation. And one of the things is that slowly we became friends, and actually, another friend of that friend brought him to his house, and he lived with him, and in a few months he was no longer homeless. So it was really young people in a movement of saying we see things and we shouldn't take that status quo as a way for us to continue living because it's like this, let's leave it. This is our normal. Yes, this is our normal. And then for people to understand that with that little thing, you can actually change that. And I think for me, that's my revelation. It wasn't even here. But when after that, with all of that, I told my parents that I throw proud of school.

SPEAKER_06 17:04

How does that conversation go?

SPEAKER_02 17:06

I think they were disappointed. It wasn't easy. But also at the same time, I remember my parents telling me. Who, your mom or your dad? I think my dad first, because he was the one who came to Belgium once I have said it. So I only saw my mom after. He also told me it might, it might, it must also have been so difficult for you. Like to lie and to go through all of that. And for me, that was the comfort of having somebody that even when you are mad, you still have empathy on understanding. So, what went wrong? And and then I remember he said, so what do you want to do your whole life? Do you want to manage a restaurant because that was the job I was doing that was paying? And I said, no, no, no. I'm not gonna manage restaurants. I have a whole plan. With the homeless, I wanted to open a non-profit. I had a lot of things that was planned. And then he told me, okay, if you are going there to be able to feed strangers like a vanya mahanga into that country, come home.

SPEAKER_06 18:14

We also have problems.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Yes, come home. And I think for for them, when I came home, the idea was for me to go back to school and finish and then do whatever I want. But for me, I didn't want to go back to school again to sit in front of a teacher in a classroom to learn things just to have a paper. I wanted to learn things that I know was in service of helping others. So because I couldn't find out what that thing would be, and really my mom was open. She was like, literally, you do you. You are old enough to know what you want from life. And for everything that you don't know, God would provide.

SPEAKER_06 18:56

That's so scary, and maybe that's where your faith comes in. You know, most, I think it's in the Bible where they say that, you know, even the birds don't plant, but somehow God provides for them. But as human beings, we're taught to worry about tomorrow. How are you going to clothe and feed yourself? And how will you pay for vacations? How will you it it must have been quite difficult? I mean, you had faith, and you're saying that you were you're studying the Bible like it was the Constitution, but there must be a part of yourself which was like, oh my goodness. The the life decisions that I'm making right now can either go very well or they can go very badly.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

I think back then I'm not thinking like that. And I didn't have a fear of it can go badly or wrongly or what. I think for me when I came back to Randa was first to see what I wanted to do. So the first thing was, you know, I contacted my friends, I'm like in holidays. I arrived just before the New Year's party and all of that. So really, my first one week or two is not even wondering how it's gonna be, what is my life about. And then I met a woman called Mama Zuzu in a prayer group. And and Mama Zuzu is actually the one who keeps pointing because I kept, you know, praying for the sick, praying for the vulnerable, praying for their friends, praying for what? And then she was like, you know, praying is easy, we can all pray. Like talking is the easiest thing. But doing something, that's where the difference is. And as you are always talking for the sick, like come to the hospital with me. I always go to say Ashwika. And then come one day and we we visit a patient and you can pray for them. You can go back knowing what they have, what are their issues, and then you can have a prayer targeted to somebody and just go visit. And and and I and and I was really afraid of going to the hospitals. Like this is not scary. Yeah. So I didn't want to go. So I keep saying, hey, next time. Next time. But at the same time, I'm calling my friend uh Ariane, who's also the vice president of Saudi Africa, and saying, you know, there's this woman to go to the hospital, and maybe you can come with me. So Ariane said yes. It gave me courage, saying, Okay, at least I'm not alone. I didn't know her that well.

SPEAKER_06 21:33

Mama Zuzu or Arian?

SPEAKER_02 21:34

No, Mama Zuzu. So I didn't want to be alone. I didn't, yeah, I didn't know. So I was more confident being with Ariane. And the fact that she said yes, I said, okay, now we can do it. We can plan to go in, I can actually say yes, meaning it and having it planned. And that's how literally I came to the hospital. Yeah, a lot of things happening. But to come back to your question of faith, I think for me, my faith. Was the the one thing I relied on actually after I started. Because after I started, that's where the scary part started started. For me, the scary part wasn't to start. It's like once you are in it now.

SPEAKER_06 22:15

Now you're in it.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Now you are in it. And now you have people depending on you on a daily basis. We go to the hospital on a daily basis. You have a relationship with the patient. You know their kids, you know the names, you know, even the names of the ones that are still at home. So it's not abstract. It's really people. So they're like, okay, how do I come back tomorrow and say I don't have bread? How do I come tomorrow and say it's not we are not able to provide? I think that the scary part came.

SPEAKER_06 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:48

Listen, I know just how annoying it is when, just in the middle of a really interesting conversation on YouTube, an ad appears. That frustration is why we've created the long-form Patreon. For just$4 a month, you can enjoy ad-free listening, early access to conversations a full day before they're publicly released, and you're directly supporting the work that we do here. Every episode takes time, research, and sometimes plane tickets. We don't do it for money. We do it because we genuinely believe in sharing stories and conversations that matter. If you want to be part of that journey, you can join the long form Patreon by scanning the QR code that you can see right now on the screen or using the link in the description. And if membership is too much of an investment, you can still support us by making a one-time donation via our MTN Momo using the code registered under LF Media 95462. Thank you so much for believing in what we do. So you go to the hospital with Ariane and Mamazu. Yes. What do you see?

SPEAKER_02 24:05

I think that the first day we went to the hospital, Mamazuzu is a clever woman. So Mamazuzu is an older woman, she has eight kids. And then we are going into the ward, and then she said, you know, you've got to go in ward four. Once you enter in the ward four, you're gonna ask for Clementine. She will be on your first bed, on the first bed on the left. But like, okay, okay, sounds like a plan. We are going down into Ashoka, and then before we arrived to the ward four, she's like, ah, I forgot, I don't know what she said, but literally we end up, Ariane and me, just going alone into the ward. We entered as the nurse that was there, we say we are here to see Clementine, first bed on the left. She said, Ah, Clementine is right there. When we entered, before even saying something, I remember I said, Ah, I'm Isabel, she said I'm Marianne. Clementine started crying right away. So as we're like, okay, what's going on? What did we do? Like, we literally haven't said anything. Once she slowly comes, we asked her, but why are you crying? And she told us this is the first time I've been here in almost four years. I'm an orphan, the orphanage was really far. And when I seek into the next to the orphanage, like in district hospital, people come to visit me. But since I've been to Se Ashoka, it's too far.

SPEAKER_06 25:33

So people who don't know, for the people who don't are not Rwandans, so Shea Ashoka is the, I guess, the main teaching hospital, the Kigali teaching hospital. It's in the center of Kigali. Yes. Now it would seem that the patient had come from maybe a rural part of Rwanda. Yes. Please. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Most of the patients come from a rural part. And then food is not part of the hospital stay. So Rwanda, we have universal health coverage. Everybody has access to a public entrance, a community-based entrance. But for food, you have to rely on your family and friends who come on a daily basis. Now, when you are living too far, it becomes impossible for people to reach you, or when you are already struggling at home. So for her, she didn't have any support on people here in Kigari. So she was crying because she said for the first time, somebody came from their home wanting to see me. As me, as a person and my name, knowing I'm coming to see you. Most of the time, she said, people would visit me because they have their loved ones who is sick. They will see that I am alone. So they will share food with me. They will be, you know, talking to me or have them, but I know that they came to see their loved ones. Most of the time, when their loved ones go back home, rarely are the ones that come back to see me. Because also, and I understand, like being a caregiver and bringing food when you have somebody that is sick, it's a heavy endeavor to take on as a family, as people, when you have somebody that is sick and you know every day you have to take care of them in terms of what they eat. It's a lot. So I think for us, that was the first, I would say, shock of just being there. How you could What was she sick of? Do you remember? Yes. So her, she had a heart failure. She had actually had received a peacemaker, but she also had retina failure. So she would go through dialysis. She couldn't, she had a lot of diet, and also she was skinny. And the first thing we ask is like, but do you eat because you look so skinny? So skinny. And then she said, you know, sometimes when churches come and they bring food, the Muslim community used to come like on Saturday and feed the whole hospital. I would eat, but most of the time it's salty, it's oily. Then I eat, then I have other issues. Sometimes I like I swallow, I don't know of that. Yes. So I would do maybe two days without eating, then coming, yes, like drinking a few things if she can. And that's why she was so tiny, tiny.

SPEAKER_06 28:12

How wait? So most people eat three meals a day.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah, most people.

SPEAKER_06 28:19

The fortunate people have three meals a day. So this woman who had cardiac issues as well as kidney issues, how often would she actually eat?

SPEAKER_02 28:33

So, as for her and understanding, before we came in, she would eat once every two days.

SPEAKER_06 28:39

Just one meal.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah, just one meal or two meals, meaning that sometimes when they bring you the food, you eat apart at lunch. But it was a little bit more than a few years.

SPEAKER_06 28:49

And this is at uh at the time, probably the biggest, maybe the biggest in terms of patients, the biggest uh public hospital in the country.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yes. Huh. Yes. And so that's shocking. Yeah, but that's that's the that's that's the reality back then. That's the reality back then. And and the other part, I think, in our journey was we look at the whole world, we went into deep, and and then there was also an old lady who told us, and she actually told Ariane, like, you know, um, I know I'm gonna die soon. But literally, what I want before dying, I want beans that are like in oil with some onions. She was really specific on how she wanted her beans. Yeah, so those of a wish of a dying person to have beans because her family was too far. She couldn't afford to buy it at the restaurant. So what she wanted was in all those well-wishers, sometimes churches, they didn't know where we were coming from. If I can give that request, maybe I'll have my beans the way I want them before I passed away. So I think for me, that's how Solid Africa was born. The next day we were there with like a soup for Clementine. Okay, what was do you remember what the soup was? So we did like we did a fish soup, the first soup. Yeah. We did a fish soup for Clementine. For Clementine.

SPEAKER_06 30:19

And then for the other lady?

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Unfortunately, she passed away. Before she got her beans. Yes, unfortunately, she passed away. Yes. But also we are in a hospital.

SPEAKER_06 30:30

I mean, but then it's that should have that should have been. I think for us, that would have broken my heart.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Yeah. Yes. I think like I I used to cry a lot. We used to cry a lot because it's in a hospital. You can't you can't get away with the things that people die, people pass away. Throughout the many years we've worked with, even now. Even now, we had two cases of brothers and sisters that are really sick, and the sister just passed away. So I think it becomes part of your daily job. But I think the most important part is really not to have a compassion fatigue. Because early on you were talking about, even for us, you see people that are hungry, but you are just focused in your hustle, in your own hustle. This is what I need to do. So this is for what we call a compassion fatigue. Is that by seeing a lot of things that are the same, you feel powerless. And then it's like, ah, you know, even I can't change anything, so why bother? And I think a lot of people have that.

SPEAKER_06 31:34

Or you leave it to God or you leave it to the state. Yeah. That's the government's job.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Yeah, I would also pinpoint on that because I think it's too easy. Government is people. Yeah, government is people. And maybe in other countries I don't have any experience, but for me in Rwanda, looking at what the government is doing and from where we are coming from, I think that I don't think ever it passes my past my head, my like my mind thinking is the government. For me, is what can we do? Actually, that's in all the gaps that are not addressed by the government, how can we, citizens, bring those solutions?

SPEAKER_06 32:19

I guess you know the you you're asking you're asking a very pertinent question because someone could say, but we pay taxes. You tax us, you build, you know, airports and stadiums, and how are you not able to provide at least two meals a day as a state?

SPEAKER_02 32:47

It's it's it's the economics. People have to go behind. As of now, Rwanda have that public insurance. They still provide, they're still subsidizing almost 10%, like 7 to 10% of the population at 100%. Then you have another almost 20-something percent that they subsidized by the patient or the person paying 4,000 and the government paying 1,000. Then other people will pay between 5,000 and 7,000, which is really affordable, random francs per year per person. Now, putting the premium of the food as a copay would mean that a lot of people won't be able to even assess that insurance if you tie them together. So for me, it's in terms of stages. If the government had money to feed people and put it into the insurance, they would have done it. Because at the end of the day, a patient that is fed, well fed, because also we are not just providing meals. We provide medically tailored meals to our patient. So, meaning we look at your illness and we have a diet for you. It's not whatever we have found or whatever donation we have got, this is what you're gonna, we're gonna feed you.

SPEAKER_06 33:55

I guess you're sorry.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Yes, so there's this economics of understanding what is the budget and how much would it cost to scale nationally and to have it as part of the insurance, but also the infrastructure and everything that is needed to be able to do so.

SPEAKER_06 34:11

I guess I I guess my my question fundamentally is I'm still uh to be honest, I'm still in shock. Again, like like I said, maybe it's the you said the poverty, what the poverty fatigue?

SPEAKER_02 34:29

The compassion fatigue.

SPEAKER_06 34:31

Or the suffering fatigue or the compassion fatigue, because what you've just said is I've all this is my first time I've heard it. What about the the the food issue? Like I had never maybe I'm also I've also been super privileged, right? Never to be under that kind of financial pressure of my family to not be able to. So I actually did not, I had no idea that if you are in a public hospital with public insurance that food is not part of the treatment because I it doesn't make sense. They actually tell you that when you're going to take certain medications, you have to eat. If you cannot eat, take that food on an empty stomach. Yes. Or if I'm undergoing dialysis or I'm going through chemotherapy, I so it's a bit, maybe it's my fault, but I don't know this.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

But that's mostly, it's not just in Rwanda. Most of the hospitals, except for a few countries, Nairo, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and then we can talk about the quality of the food, but they provide food. But most of the country, being Burundi, Congo, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, I can name many, they don't provide food. So the healthcare in many countries has been built with hospitals without kitchen and having that, I would say, that burden of feeding the patient being on families. So we are not unique. As long as hospitals have existed in Rwanda, there were no kitchens to feed the patient. Even back back then, before the 2000s, if you had gone to Say Ashika, to Kikari Teaching Hospital, you find that some caregivers come with Imbabura, Amakara.

SPEAKER_06 36:37

So Imbabura is a charcoal store.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

And cook on the ground. Like the caregivers cooking. Yes, they will find a place because food has been really pushed, I would say, on the side.

SPEAKER_06 36:51

Outside the treatment.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Outside the treatment. And you can see it in different ways. It can be that, first of all, if you're looking at global health investment, they don't put the food. And maybe because for them it's not an issue. So when they come in our country to be able to help, we talk about drugs, about vaccine, about all of it, and it's all needed. But nobody is wondering what is the patient eating, why we are doing all of that and all of that investment.

SPEAKER_06 37:16

So they maybe the Bill Gates foundations, like those ones, will give you money for ARVs against HIV, but then they won't realize that okay, if we give this a person ARVs without proper nutrition, it might actually cause more problems.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Yes. And for example, even in 2010, when we started, Global Fund used to actually give food to patients with HIV. They would even come to the hospital, they would have a list, they take, you know, cages of what, cages of what, because even in their investment, they had realized, and they've done a case in Kenya, whereby people were getting worse, though they would have the medication while having HIV. And they starting, they started feeding them, having gardens, really having them like on a restaurant where they were planting a few things into their farms, and then see the change on how now they are they were the medication was working on them. So it's not a known issue, but is nobody's tackling it or making it, I would say, seen as a big issue as it is. And yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:27

But I guess because maybe that's maybe this is maybe what the chief the takeaway from this conversation will be, is that this is an issue. I I mean I've known you for a decade plus.

SPEAKER_05 38:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 38:44

I actually did not know the scale of the what you've just told me is uh the first time I've maybe consumed it and heard it. Right? That actually the problem is like this. Is it commenting still alive? I guess it's it's uh how do you I guess this is when the the the beauty of the the gospel gives you strength. Yes, right? Because you know, usually when you're trying to do something of service, you want there to be a happy ending.

SPEAKER_05 39:40

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_06 39:40

That's that's those are the stories that you know. I will give this person money and then one day they'll they will get out of their poverty and they will be great. Yeah, kind of like the the story with your first friend.

SPEAKER_05 39:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 39:55

Because that that it seemed like that story with is it Ahmed. Ahmad. Ahmad, Ahmad. It had a happy ending, right? He was homeless because of actions you took, he was able to get off the streets. But now it's you're telling me a story of Clementine, and you did what you had to do, but it's still the not.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Yes, because we have to always remember we are not the maker, we are just the workers. And and I think it's also what makes it light, is not putting all of that burden. We are not responsible of the people we care for. In the sense like of death and life, does it get better or not? It's not in our hands. So we do the most that we can. And as long as we understand that, like for me, studying Solid Africa was another, I say it was most stressful at the beginning once you started. And we literally didn't have money, relying on friends and friends, everybody bringing what they could.

SPEAKER_06 40:56

I remember maybe it was in 2011. I remember I came for a party. It used to throw little parties and do fundraisers.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Yes. Yeah, we did a lot of fundraisers with parties like that. And that money that was collected would help us to have enough money for a month or two and then it would continue. Uh, we used to have the solid Fridays and all of that. But I remember like one day I had a case, but that's that's a happy ending. Him, he's alive and in school, and he's a big boy now. But him was part of the first case is that he was burned at 40% and needed reconstructive surgery, expensive medicine, and really specific diet. Because when you are looking at wounds, we have like a high protein diet where we put bone marrow in almost everything because bone marrow will help your wound to heal. And some of those illnesses, there's nothing they can do for you. They're just looking for your wound to actually heal for them to start treatment. So nutrition becomes really, really important in what you eat and what kind of source of protein you get for your wound to heal. And then I remember we didn't have like money for the next meals, money for the medicine. And I was worried. Then at the same time, we used to have a lot of debt. We owned a lot of money in some of the in some of the bakeries around town where we're took bread for the morning. And I remember I was like super stressed, almost no sleep. I would go continue because of that, up until the day I understood that I'm just the worker, I'm not the maker. So once I had that realization of saying I'm not responsible of what does God is. For the outcomes. For the outcomes, God is. He created, he knows, and he loves everybody more than I can pretend to love them. So once I have that understanding, even now, even if our account is zero, I will still sleep like a baby, which I use not to do because I'll take the worry as a responsibility of me having the answers to that. And because also we were in the people that started it saying, like, you brought you brought us here, so now what? And I think it's a liberation, it's a real liberation to understand to to know your limits.

SPEAKER_06 43:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:13

So you you start feeding one person, two people, three people. It's still very, I would call it a micro industry at this point. It's okay. I have 10,000 francs, okay. I can make a bunch of a bunch of soup, I'll feed five people. At what point does it move from, do you realize it's not about charity, but there's a system failure that I now need to actually look at a real solution? Because very often with some of these things, it's okay, I I can help give a beggar a hundred francs. If I'm feeling very generous, maybe 500. But that is not fixing a system. Because a lot of issues when it comes to say poverty, it's a systemic issue. At what point do you then think you start thinking it's less about feeding one, two, three, four and saying, okay, there's a systemic issue here and therefore it needs a systemic solution. Hey, before we dive back into the conversation, are you a business looking to grow your reach, an organization, hoping to connect with a youth, or a market leader with a great product you want people to know about? You can advertise right here on the Longform Podcast. Reach out to us on our email commercial at Sunny Nayombia.com or on our phone number 0795462739. Let me repeat, on our phone number, 0795462739. We'd love to help you tell your story. And now back to the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

I think it's it's built up. But since the first day, what we knew was we have to give food security and feeding a few. For the most, most like we'll go to the hospital and the social workers and actually identify the five most venable ones. So there were some criteria.

SPEAKER_06 45:35

What was the criteria?

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Like, first of all, back then we used to have Ubudehe categories. So you would have to have social classification. Yes, social classification. So you need to be in the first category.

SPEAKER_06 45:47

So that's the poorest of the poor.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Exactly. The second of all, you have to have your family far away from Kigadi. So not coming from Kigadi or the nearby where you know somebody can't go. And the third was you didn't have a caregiver. Because some patient comes and they don't actually have a caregiver, somebody to take care of them. So meaning that when also other people come with food, most of the people would cue and run to be able in the first people to be able to run. But if you don't have a caregiver to run for you and do the queue for you.

SPEAKER_06 46:17

So run and get food.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

And get food, yes, to run and get food, you wouldn't have it. So that's how we identify. And of course, we'll take like children, mothers before, and then slowly it was five, ten, sixty. So the list was getting more people. But since the beginning, our our aim was we have to make sure that they receive that meal. And back then we are giving one meal a day. That one meal a day that they can count on on a daily basis. They don't need to run, they don't need to, I don't know, to go look for other solutions. They will know that in their bed where they are, somebody will come on a daily basis and give them food. Meaning as Solid Africa. And then slowly while you've got the food. So it would depend. On Monday, we'll cook and always have meat. On Monday, we'll do meat. We'll do breakfast, we'll do meat with what? Like with rice, beans, vegetables, but also as we are learning. So we started also just giving the food we thought was good for them. Then slowly you see people that can only eat soup. You see people that are have tubes, so can't even have a different diet than a liquid diet. So, how do you adapt the way you are cooking and we are cooking in homes?

SPEAKER_06 47:33

Yeah, who is cooking? Is it like, are you in the kitchen? Are you is it you? Is it your friends? Is it No.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Back then we are cooking at our parents. I cooked myself with the the help of the workers, maybe for the first 60 patients. And after that, we're just using the workers at my parents' house, also another member house that she was able to give it and have her workers be able to do the porridge. So we'll collect. At some point, also another one, another friend also were doing soup at his place, because the more the numbers were growing and the more difficult it was to deal it in a normal kitchen that wasn't never designed to feed hundreds and hundreds of patients. And I think also what we did is that even at the beginning, we went and did a whole presentation to the Ministry of Health, of course, first the hospitals, but also the Ministry of Health, to understand. We wanted to understand what is the vision of the country. Would food one day be part of the hospital care? But it wasn't in the next 10, 15 years to come that it will be done. But also saying that even when in the future it will be included, either way, they will outsource it, is not that they will want to cook for that food on a solution. So I think it's uh it's a long journey, but for us, we said we don't want to wait. And that goes back to your question. Isn't it the matter of the states? But aren't we all living in that country? So why wait when you know you can bring something that can solve something? And and and and we didn't have the pretension of saying, you know, nationally, this is our plan. We are just at the beginning. For us, it was one hospital. If we can arrive to that one hospital, and we chose it because it was the biggest one. Anything that we would have been able to succeed, it would be easier to replicate. So we went in the most challenging one instead of starting with Muhima or other hospitals that were smaller. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 49:36

Okay, so let's let's let's break this down properly. So you start with one person, eventually you're now at 60 people every day that you feed one meal a day. This is in one 2011?

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Yeah, 2011. We are, I think we launched the organization where we were feeding around 80 people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:01

80 people. Now, at what point do you realize at had you always thought it would become this thing? Like you know, sometimes you get into a sector or a business or an initiative where you don't actually realize how big it will become. And then what you're doing is you're constantly trying to catch up with how quickly the development is becoming. You get what I'm saying? Yes. So if you see today, you you told me that you serve about 1,600 people, 600 patients per day.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

1,800 patients.

SPEAKER_06 50:49

1,800 patients per day, and you also give school meals to about 20,000 students.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

29,000.

SPEAKER_06 50:57

29,000 students per day.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Yeah, on school days, yes.

SPEAKER_06 51:00

On school days. You started at 60 people, one meal. All those days, all those years back in 2011. Where you are today, did you ever think that you would become who you've become?

unknown 51:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 51:20

So that was the plan.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

That was the plan at Solid Africa. We didn't know that it would be like this, but that was the plan. And and for us, Solid Africa, it really, and that's why I say a lot, we, we, we, we, because it was a movement really of young people, and we took time to think and rethink and think and rethink. 2010, spending time at the hospital, really understanding the challenges. We wanted to build an industrial kitchen, got a land in 2012. So the idea has always how do we professionalize that? How do we make it as systemic, but mostly how do we make the food so affordable that one day patients can copay, government can copay, because that was the most difficult question because you you will look around, inside and outside restaurant, there were canteens around the hospital. Inside and outside the hospital, there were canteens, restaurants, but when you see the cost of the meal, back then the meals will go from 800 francs to 1,500.

SPEAKER_06 52:23

So back then that was about a dollar, maybe two dollars.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Exactly. So who can afford a meal at that price? Make it even three times. Then you'll find mothers who had babies in pediatric or little kids, they'll spend their day buying mandasi.

SPEAKER_06 52:41

Mandasi, for those who don't know, is just a dough, a dough, a dough ball that is deep fried.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

Exactly. So the kids feel they are full, but they haven't eaten anything. There's no nutrition. There's no nutrition. And sometimes you will you will see children ending by being malnourished at the hospital.

SPEAKER_06 52:59

Being more malnourished than they came.

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Yes, or with malnutrition when they didn't have, because there were no access to healthy, nutritious food that they can consume. So for us, it was clear even since the beginning, but it's the path that how do we say, how do you come from? And we didn't want to even do a smaller kitchen. So our idea was we need a big kitchen that is centralized because we didn't have the money to build in all public hospitals. That from that kitchen, we can at least go in five, six, seven, eight public hospitals at the same time. Having a kitchen that will allow multiple diet at the same time, having a kitchen that can do three meals a day. So all of that was taught in 2011 to 2012. On how do we make it happen? What is the yeah. And and and that's why for us building Solid Africa in Rwanda, making make it easy. Because even with that idea, even how small we were.

SPEAKER_06 54:08

What we did was That's not small, that's that's a lot of people. Yes. A lot of lives that you've touched.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

Yes. And and we we went to the district of Gasabo and we asked for land. We asked, we said, this is our project, we want for we want. And they actually understood. And actually, we went with them. They gave us the land in Russoro. We signed an agreement of 10 years. Uh, we had 10 years to actually do what we said we're gonna do, find the money to build and also build a kitchen that is meant for the vulnerable, either in hospital but a vulnerable community, and not making any business except if the business was going back into those patients. So, yes. So we got the rank in 2012 and we actually started building in 2018. So it took us six years, almost seven. We completed the kitchen in 2019. So three years before our deadline.

SPEAKER_06 55:06

No, it's you know, one of the things that I'm just kind of wondering when it comes to the cost of food, right? So you talked about how people are not able to afford healthy meals because they usually cost between a dollar or two dollars.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

The one with the profit.

SPEAKER_06 55:24

Right. What does your what if I was to buy your meals, if if I was to be sick and to be in need today, and how much would a meal cost if I was a patient?

SPEAKER_02 55:39

So in average, if you're a patient, I mean it would cost like 700.

SPEAKER_06 55:43

So that's about 700, that's about 50 cents.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Yeah, 50, 60 cents.

SPEAKER_06 55:48

And what do I get for 50 cents a meal?

SPEAKER_02 55:51

Yeah, so you'll have vegetables depending that varieties. We have like a 14-day rotation menu. You have a starch, you'll have legumineuse. I don't know how you say it. A legume. So that's either beans or yes, uh, uh, uh, uh, or protein, and then yeah, a starch, vegetables, and uh, and a legume. The ones, this is the average. The one that goes at 1,000 and above, that is the one that you will have an animal protein. Okay. Either fish, chicken, depending on the diet.

SPEAKER_06 56:20

So 50 cents, you get pretty much a vegan, uh vegetarian diet that still allows you to enjoy starch, carbohydrates, uh protein, and vitamins. Yes. And if I was to want that the most basic meal, right? I'm I'm I'm from the poorest of the poor. Maybe I have a dollar fifty.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 56:47

So, what does my breakfast look like?

SPEAKER_02 56:50

So your breakfast. So, in breakfast, we give fresh bread to our patient. So, we'll have your fresh bread. If you have diabetes, we also have brown bread, depending on your diet. Then you will have porridge, we do a mix of sorghum and maize, and then depending on your diet, some have fresh milk and some have soup and fresh juice. So, it really depends on your diet. I would say that the most expensive maybe diet is ICU. Those that are tube fed because mostly they will need like liters of fresh juice on a daily basis. They have like five to seven feedings compared to somebody who has three. But that's what you will get on on breakfast.

SPEAKER_06 57:27

Okay. And then dinner would be dinner would be something lighter.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

So in dinner, it will be like a mix of things. We do, like for lunch, for example, we always have two starches that you choose from, depending on what you're allowed to eat or not to eat. So you might not be renal or cardiac or things like that, or diabetes, but you might come from a surgery, which means that that day you are unable to eat rice or eat things like that. So not to always be surprised. But in the evening, it's always something light, like vegetable with beans that are cooking, something like a like a like a gatogo or a mix, I don't know how you call it.

SPEAKER_06 58:04

Yeah. So what so that I fully understand this? So for about$1.50 a day, I can have three meals.

SPEAKER_05 58:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 58:15

Okay. And that's if I can afford it. What happens when I can't afford it? When I'm I'm I come, as you've said, from the poorest of the poor.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 58:24

What how am I still getting a meal?

SPEAKER_02 58:27

Yes, because now all those 1,800 patients we are feeding them for free.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:33

Not them paying, not that the food is free. Somebody has to pay. But they are not paying the ones that that we are feeding. As of now, almost like 86% of our budget comes from philanthropy. Then we have 12% that comes from government, and then we have 2% that comes from in-kind donation. So a lot of people give us in-kind when they harvest, when they do a lot of things. We have a lot of partners and farmers along the value chain that are providing things for free for us to be able to provide to the patient. But for me, what we are proving as Solid Africa is that it's a global issue. You know, 2.6 billion people can't afford to have access to a healthy meal. This is like the World Bank and all of that. 2.6 billion people. And for us, what we have discovered is that it's not food that is expensive, it's the systems that are there to be able to bring the food to your plate that make it expensive for you to eat healthy. Because we are able to produce all of that because we control the value chain. We have what we call a farm to plate. If Solid Africa today was just relying on going to the markets, buying, bringing in our kitchen, there's no way we can deliver the quality of the food we are delivering. At the cost. At the cost. It won't be possible. And for us to start farming, we started in 2014. Because back then the price of beans went high. We had the money for the whole year. It was a big fear. And that's how we started really farming and slowly, slowly. We started enjoying it, having harvest. We started embracing regenerative agriculture. You can call it permaculture, sustainable culture, agriculture, did a lot of trainings around that, and then seeing our production actually sometimes double from what we were getting before and after using regenerative agricultural principles. So for us, the fact that we control the value chain, we make sure also that our kitchen is super efficient. If you come to our kitchen, for example, we have a machine that does Ugadi, Kaunga.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

Okay?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:42

Maze meal.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

So it does it for 500 people in less than 40 minutes, and you don't need anybody. By the time you put the water, it's boiling, you have somebody putting the flour, and that's done. The machine will turn up until it's ready, the machine will get off. So having also that efficiency in the way you are cooking, making it that the price goes down. The other aspect also of it is that we take all the waste and make our own fertilizer. Like we have our own farm. We have nine hectares that was also donated by the government. And that in the nine hectare farms, we are almost autosufficient in terms of fertilizer at 75%, coming from our own waste when we are cooking meals and whatever waste can have from the meals. But more than that, because we are not able to auto-suffice ourselves, now that we have grown, we used to produce 84% of our meals back then, like five years ago, were coming from that farm. As of now, it's only 10%. And what we do is that we have contracted cooperatives. So we are working with 7,000 smaller holder farmers to be able to buy what they are sourcing, what they are farming. But when we did to do the baseline, we noticed that they were harvesting less than us in the same hectares. So what we did was this is a lack of business. What would I buy from you from this land when you can produce more? So we started investing in input fertilizer, testing their soil, training them. We work with a young organization called Oreco. They're already training smaller holder farmers. We co-create our curriculum from what we have learned, what they know, put it together and actually train the farmers. In three seasons, they have increased their production by 40%, reduced their post-harvest by 60%, but most importantly, they have increased their income from 60% to 100% because we are the market. We are not training them and then say, okay, linkage to the market, go find something. And also what we are doing is that because our menus are, I will say they change. We have a 14-day rotation menu. We are not only targeting the maize, the beans, and maybe the amaranth, like the dodo, as the one vegetables that people like. We are also looking at people that does aubergine, carrot, because we have a lot of vegetables and we change a lot into the amir, so meaning that we are opening the value chain to more farmers than the ones that are mostly targeted.

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SPEAKER_06 1:04:44

Let's talk about everyone can talk about scale. Scale is, you know, it's if you scale, you do this. If you scale, you grow, you'll make but you can only scale when you have the means to scale. Right? As you've said, the government can give you land, but you have to build the facilities on the land. You have to pay for the labor. You have to the the beginning of your journey sounded like there was a lot of volunteerism, but volunteerism does not create the company that you now have, the business, the the organization you now have. There had to be a certain level of real investment that came and took you and and solid africa to another level.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:38

Let's talk about the the fundraising. Everyone can have a good idea. Not everyone can implement it. And sometimes it's not even just because the the idea is bad, it's they just don't have the means. How did you what were the tricks that you used to Allow your dream not to die like many other people's dreams of helping the most needy.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

Because I didn't align my dream with money. And I think for me, I don't agree with that sentence that you need the means to implement. I think you just need to start. Literally, we didn't have the means. And I remember even our first meals, people go in their homes, their aunties, my auntie has a bakery, my thing has this, my thing has this banana, and we'll collect all together. Not that we had a lot of cash money that we're doing that. Coming from your home, we're doing five people. So I think for me that money was never a restriction. In the sense that I knew even from my friends, and it didn't go far, that they have more, that they can do more, that they can give more, that there's something that they can do that can help somebody else. I think for us, and that's why we used to say Solid Africa is not an organization, it's a movement of people that believe that if we put our mind together and our resources, we can solve most of the pressing social issues we are seeing in our country. Now, ideas bring money in the sense that we build out of this with volunteerism, literally with volunteerism for eight years. And in those eight years, we never stopped going to feed a patient. Money was never a restriction to what we did. Yes, we took risks, yes, we had debt, yes, we had to be innovative on how to get the money. At some point, that even some of the members would sell services for free, like we'll go to a company and say, you know, if you're a good marketer, he will give you marketing strategy, you give us bread. We were always resourceful in finding a way of getting money out of those ideas. So what I think is that as long as we think problem and then we think money as coming at the same time, then most of us will never do anything. And many people also that start a business. Like we have a success story like the woman who built that university, Kichukiro of Tourism, who started by sending few mandasi, what she could, that one kg of flower that she could afford, make mandasi a note of it and look at her now. So I think we have to look at social issues, social enterprise, nonprofit in the same angle. If you do, if you start with what you have, as tiny, as small, as is insignificant you think it is, there's always a way of building around it. Is that for us, you want to have your five-year strategy plan. Yeah. You see? Your sustainability model. And I remember when I began a lot of people saying, but what is the sustainability? And I used to say sustainability is that those people have eaten today. That's my sustainability. So it's it's just we have, yeah, we just have to open our mindset into doing and taking risks. And when it comes to the fundraising, as I said, it took us a lot of years. But we are in a country that when it comes to what government offered that were in kind, we're a statement of people saying, though we don't have any money, we know it's a good idea that even the government already would give us a land. And I remember we even went to Nok in all of those big construction companies and saying we have a land, but we don't have cement, we don't have tides. We did so many things. And and the fun part also around it is that we were young, mostly friends of friends of friends. So it was also something that was bringing us together in accomplishing in every little time that people have outside of their work was related to Solid Africa. And we are all young in our early 20s, people with first job, no babies yet, no weddings yet, not all of that, not a lot of responsibility, people have a lot of time outside of their work. So there was also that sentiment of actually we can do it. We've passed from five and now we are feeding 80. So actually it's working, we're feeding 160. Though somebody looking at Pepper would have said, this business will fail, or this whatever nonprofit, as long as you don't have a big NGO, a gates, or whatever, or whatever, give you the fund and then you implement, you would never succeed.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:33

How do you handle you're talking about this and and I'm I'm smiling inside because I'm I'm I'm picturing you going to you know knock on these doors and say, hey, help us out here. And as Rondans, we are we never as a culture, I think, we never want to seem needy. You know, you it it comes from a very it's almost like you're putting yourself at a at a position of weakness to show that I need help. Yeah, how do you how did you and and especially when asking for help is not the scariest part. The scariest part is asking for help and then being rejected. Yes, yeah, you know that's exactly I I don't know other countries, but I know the the worst thing you can do to a Rwanda who has asked you for something is to reject him because it's not even about the rejection, it's now they even take it personal, and and they really think, oh my goodness, I'm a failure. I'm a we we get into our heads like that. Yes how do you how did you navigate for every person who said yes, there are at least five who shut the door in your face.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:12

How do you how did you how did you make sense of that? How do you navigate that?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

Yeah, I think like there's also the the the part of you know, you're asking money not for you. You're asking money to help other people. So, of course, as Randan like asking, it's always, as you say, it's always nabushakwa so good. Yeah, so to say that you are need like you need them and things like that. But I have to say that the overwhelming part is that for Solid Africa and everybody who have approached in Rwanda, really the response, the response were no. Even if some yes were never yes, because it never came to fluctuation, people say yes because you are doing they will say, you know, yeah, you are doing great things even if they don't want to fulfill that. But also there've been some rejection. Like people would say, you know, come to my office and then they will not receive you. They'll make you sit for hours and hours. And you are wondering, but why am I doing here? Like, what is like it's so disrespectful, blah, blah, blah. What is the time and all of that? But for me, it goes back to knowing who you are and your own identity. Because rejection, I think we got more rejection from outside than we got from Rwanda. And maybe that's what was such a driver in what we were doing, because people in Rwanda could see the effect of what we were doing, the impact. Outside people didn't understand.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:44

Or maybe they fundamentally don't care.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:46

Yeah, don't care. But also, I think don't understand because they'll invest in things and try to make you understand that food is not a big issue. So I think there's a lot of not understanding, not fitting, not doing all of that. But I think that rejection becomes personal when you think that when they are rejecting your idea, they are rejecting you. And that's why it is so important to know your identity, to know who you are and who you work for. And as long as you are clear on that, it doesn't matter if one million people say no and only two say yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:17

You know, it won't change. No, it's uh huh. You know, when we're talking off-camera, I asked your question about the what I'd call not necessarily the startup capital, but maybe where you are now, right? To get to where you were, where you are today, it was a money that was needed. And you told me that to get, you know, the building, the the farm, the staff, the industrial kitchen, all of that, it was about if someone would restart Solid Africa, it would have taken about$1.3 million.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

As an initial investment.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:04

As an initial investment, right? Which is a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:08

Right? It's it's not it$1.3 million can buy can build a major piece of property.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:18

And obviously, as you said, you were a volunteer organization. A lot of people were not working for they were working for the greater good, but the greater good does not often pay the bills and and and and buy and import things from China. How are you able to find the the means to is it is it money coming in from the state? Is it money coming in from people? Is it money coming in from international organizations? Where's the money coming from?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:00

Yes. So for our initial investment, and I think, not I think, for our initial investment, and we are really proud of it, it came from Mbuto Foundation to build the kitchen. So back then, as I think.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:12

Mbuto Foundation is eh?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:14

Is our is is is our first lady foundation. And and we had been, I think we are like we are reaching 300 patients per day.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:25

Still cooking in your friends' rooms.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:26

Still cooking in your friends' homes. No, I think we have reached 400 because yes, 400 patients per day, and we couldn't. They are normal friends.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:34

They are normal friends.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:37

And and and family, but we couldn't cook for more. That was yeah, the maximum we could do in the condition we were in. But also all those years we went and learned about kitchen, about processing, about all of that, a lot of fellowships, a lot of visits to go and look at it. We are volunteers, so every money that is collected into the country is given 100% to the impact. And then I think we had received a prize in 2013, the Sirgo Award, like celebrating young achievers. So we knew the new of us. And actually, yes, 2017 took our, how do you say that? Our courage and went to ask. And our ask was simple. Who did you ask? Mbuto Foundation, yes. And and our ask was simple was nobody wants to invest in us, believing that this is an issue and you can actually solve it. But for that, we need the first industrial kitchen that is made in a way that is big and all of that that I said what we wanted from from that kitchen. But we have applied everywhere. We've knocked here, we've knocked outside, we've had few leads, none has gone through. Like every time you think why?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:58

Why because when you think about it, right? So I don't everyone, I I I'm assuming the people that you whose doors you are knocking on, they understood that you know, people need to eat. Right? So why is it that if they could understand that part?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:19

It's because the investment was big. And we didn't want to do a smaller kitchen that was doing charcoal and things of that. We wanted a state-of-the-art kitchen because that uh for us was the way to sustainability. So, yeah, we had some proposal of like a smaller kitchen just to make sure that you know what you are doing, do a little one. But if I do a little one, will you give me a big one? No, we will reassess. So for us, we stick to that idea of what we wanted and how we wanted it. And we knew we would find a funder that would understand it the same way that we are understanding it.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:57

Why do you say you knew? Is it faith?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:02

Yes, faith.

unknown 1:19:04

Yeah?

SPEAKER_06 1:19:04

Just knew. Yes. God will provide.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:07

God will provide and we'll provide a big kitchen. And also because, and also because for us, that's what could show the model in how it can actually work. Because cooking from homes, as you can imagine, there's a lot of things like we're in plastic bucket, things like that. We don't actually do medically teleals. We are having one diet for everybody. If you have like a you are too fed, then we have to do extra, but we can have more than one or two patients because we are unable to provide that for you. We spend time really looking at the food is medicine movement that was in the US, looking at how medical meals do actually decrease the recovery rate. But also, we wanted a big kitchen saying that if we can find a business model where we can sell meals on a big scale, then we can have money that comes back into feeding the patient. So, a lot of reasons of why we wanted the kitchen. And we're just happy that Mbuto Foundation was the organization that believed in that mission and actually partnered with us to build that kitchen. And the Pan-Africanist in me is just happy that it was able to be done locally. And also we partnered, the Mbuto Foundation partnered with the King of Morocco, six, to actually come together to be able to provide us with the funds that were needed to build that kitchen. And I think for me, that's when Solid Africa actually starts. Because before that, it's us like trying to like lift, like do a lot of lifting, and it goes slowly, slowly, slowly. You know, a lot of rejection, a lot of people not understanding and take and taking you for you know young, stupid kids. So I think, yeah, it it was a moment, I think, of acknowledgement of now we're starting, and excitement. Because I remember even the first stone laying ceremony, all the members and everybody, we couldn't believe it. That the kitchen we have dreamed back then, we used to do meetings at Kelkepa in Narutrama in that bar. That's that what we have dreamed there.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:18

So people who don't know Kelkapa, it's literally uh I don't, it doesn't exist anymore. No, it was right in front of MTN Center.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:29

And there was like mango trees, and yes, it they were you'd sit in little bungalows that that were separated by bamboo.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:39

And it's a place that you super young people would meet because the the brother the the meat was cheap and the beers were cheaper.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:47

Yeah, so that's where you used to do our meetings and talk about Solid Africa and dream about Solid Africa. Before we moved to Lemigo Hotel, who accepted to give us a room for free. Yeah, but before that, you know, could go to Kirke Par as long as you are spending, you could have any meetings there.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:05

Let's let's talk about a lot of, and and it's it's really interesting that it was the Mbuto Foundation, which is the first ladies of Ronda's organization, which bet on you.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:18

Because very often when we think about African, you know, we always talk about African solutions for African problems, but very often when there is a problem that is cannot be fixed by capitalism, by you know, buying and selling, then the conversation then moves to let's get what we'd call Abajiraneza in Kyanda, the donors. And donors are never black people like you. It's always our European friends and and and now we even have Arabs as well. How hard, you know, first of all, how happy have you been that your biggest donate uh, you know, the the biggest donations, the biggest help has come from the Rwandan organization, an African organization? And number two, how difficult has it become has it been sourcing international capital or international help for your program?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

No. Uh I think it's uh it's a long conversation to be able to enter it. But happy, yes. And and for me, that's why Solid Africa, we know that the success that we have is because we are in Rwanda. Because from the beginning, from the land to the understanding, we have an environment that was able to say this is a good idea. Because what you are saying is that many organizations, social entrepreneurs, will receive prices from abroad before their own country even notice them or say what they are doing, and then they'll try to catch up or give them a price. Even the prices we received, our first run was in Rwanda, as the first recognition that we got. When it comes to how it becomes difficult, I think that it's a lot about relationship. It's a lot about, you know, those call for proposals that are open. It's rarely that they are picking people that they don't know or haven't heard about or haven't been recommended by some of the other ecosystems. And I think for us was but how do we make sure that we are in that ecosystem?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:45

And that ecosystem, I'm sorry to interrupt you, that ecosystem already has major players who take up so the Oxfam, the compassions, the these, the Samaritans, the A lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:58

And then you have a lot of yeah, and then and then in between, you have a lot of organizations that were started by Westerners that come in the continent doing work. So those also will receive money before any locally led organization that is doing the job on the ground. And and I think for us, like with the Imbutom Foundation being the first, the other organization is called Seagull Family Foundation.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:23

Who are they?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:24

So Seagull Family is an amazing organization. I mean, they are bored, so uh I'm super objective about that. But the Seagull Family Foundation is the first foundation that actually gave us money back in 2018. We already had received the commitment of Mbuto. We are really in the beginning of starting to build, but they invested in us because we are still a volunteer without any audited financials, without any other of the things, because they understood and believed in the in the mission. And it's a family foundation, they are based in New York, but they have program officers in the countries that they work in that are from those countries. Like for us, she was a Burundian, she was in charge of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. So she knew the issue, she could understand the issue. I wasn't trying to convince her of what is the need and why it's needed. But also they took, I would say, a bet in organization saying, though we see there's nothing that you, I would say, like in construction of an organization and all of that that you have, we can help you. And they did their first investment, but more than that, what they do what was their first investment?

SPEAKER_06 1:26:37

Do you remember?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:38

So their first investment, yes, I remember. Never forget the amount of money that people give you. So their first investment was$30,000. Yes,$30,000. And the idea then was after that, what they do is that they open their door to other funders in their ecosystem. And that is something that is priceless because they are not the biggest funder in terms of the ticket size, but they are the biggest funders. Actually, they're the second biggest funders in terms of grantee after Gates, though the endowment is so smaller than Gates Foundation. But in terms of those early stages and how they source it, and then they open the door. Every one to two years, they organize what they call the annual general meeting. And in those, they bring a lot of funders and a lot of doers. And everybody comes into those meetings knowing that we are there to meet people that are doing the things on the ground, and as we know that we are there to meet funders.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:38

So already we know that it's a fundraising uh and pretty much the the foundation is pretty much saying that these people are we trust them that if you give their money, yes, if you give your money, it will go into what they say. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:57

And they have been a due diligence, and physically, people. Have been there. So that's why having local program officers help a lot. It helps just even in the discussion on how you are dealing with. And from there, from that moment, the next foundation came from those meetings, the next, and then we build on, and then other funders introduce you to other. But it's still a harass to fundraise. It doesn't get easy.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:23

Are you still getting rejected by white people?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:25

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:28

So why do they reject you?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:30

For a lot of things. Like some people reject us because they're not understanding our model. They don't understand why we would be involved in farming, fertilizer, and all of that. Why don't we just have the kitchen source from aggregators and things like that? And then that's who can deliver.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:48

Hey everyone, I just want to take a moment to thank all of you who've been a part of the long form journey. Every view, comment, and subscription has helped us grow and get to where we are today. But here's the thing about 72% of the people who actually watch this podcast haven't subscribed yet. We want to keep bringing you even bigger conversations with even bigger guests, including, let's say, even the president of this country. But this milestone starts with you. Subscribing is free, but it makes a huge difference. It shows our guests that what we're building here matters and that it's worth their time appearing on my platform. So please help us and hit that subscribe button, and we'll promise to keep delivering powerful, meaningful conversations. Thank you so much. Now, let's get into the episode. Why do they care so much? I mean, if I'm trying to, if I call myself a donor that I'm I'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart, right? And I care so much about Rwandans and Africans, then I would say if it's working, as long as it's working, you know, you don't really care how the sausage is made. You want to make sure that the sausage is tasty.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:12

No, because most of the donors they have their own agenda. They have their own agendas, they have their own rules and things that they have to follow. You know, one guy, I think is it the one of the which foundation? One of the big foundations who said, I don't remember which one it is, he said, my first, my first job is to make sure that the money that the foundation has will continue for generation and generation. So his first job is not for the money to have an impact first, is to make sure that that endowment in how their spending is will be there to last for years and years and years. But also, foundations, they have their own agenda in what they want to invest. And there's also the fact that they've used to see things in a certain way. And Solid Africa doesn't fit into how they've worked with other social enterprises. And they will think that, ah, but it's too complicated. Maybe if you do just one thing, it will be easier. So everybody has their own agenda. Uh, and that's why you look for partners that really understand what you are doing and what you are trying to solve. I think the more you fundraise, the more you understand that not all money is good money. And whatever money people can give you, they also want some milestone of things to be achieved.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:34

That again, this is maybe my own thinking. I'm not going to say it's you at all, but you know, I don't want to use the R word. The R word here being racism. But somehow, what you're telling me, I cannot see it outside that that lens.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:02

Right? So on one side you have these poor, needy, black and brown people. Because let's let's be honest, who are usually the ones asking, who are usually the ones giving.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:15

And you know, every so often when we talk about there's been discussions around aid and the aid industry, and we and there are conversations around the fact that the aid industry is not there to solve the problem, it's to perpetuate the problems. Yes. Because it's an industry, it's they're not trying to work themselves out of a job. And maybe that's that's their that's maybe the problem with you, is that if you do the work properly, then you don't need them.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:50

Yeah, I don't know. I think some maybe, but most of the ones I have encountered, I think it's deeper because you can they actually finance other Africans.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:02

But I think for me that what type of Africans and what type of program?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:06

Of program, yes. Some will do, but they they love that one thing because aid, how it was constructed over the years, how it came aid with religion, aid in a fact of, you know, how do you how can I say that? Like having violence on one side and then having aid to path as if, you know, things are going well. It also has that aspect of just one thing. We are there to bring education. We're gonna put people in classes and they will learn English. We are there to do so. There's this aspect of multifacet solutions that is really, really bothering people because they find it's too risky. But then life is complex. Exactly. Poverty is not one thing. Exactly. So that's what we are pushing and have find few people to understand. But even in the developing world, it's really something that is difficult for people to align behind into understanding that you need that lot of components sometimes to actually give a solution that is that can work.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:10

Is there one of the things that I always wonder, and and you talked about it was about the sustainability of a model.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:18

Obviously, you couldn't sustain the 600, the 700 people that you wanted to feed every day in people's homes. So therefore, you needed to go into a larger kitchen and have this, and now you're able to feed almost 30,000 plus people every day. This costs money, and you cannot always be at the mercy of donors because they can wake up. I mean, right now we're having these conversations and and there is a war happening in in in in the Middle East, and the whole world is we had gotten used to gas prices at this, but now oh my goodness, now governments around the world are trying to figure out what is the plan B. For for Solid Africa to survive, it cannot be because someone is likes Isabel or like Saranda. It will only it will survive when it's able to survive even when a crisis of funding comes in. Let's talk about that moment.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:48

How do you how does an org how does a company like yours, how does an organization like yours start earning the means for it to be self-sustaining? What is the pathway?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:01

Yes. Uh I think first is to assess your course driver and be able to see how you can mitigate those. Like we talk about the gas, our new kitchen that we just built before Iran is a solar kitchen kitchen because we understood that the fluctuation, even before the war, it's always fluctuating when it comes to gas. So we are no longer using LPG gas.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:24

You're using solar, fully solar.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:26

Uh not in our old kitchen. Our new kitchen is now.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:30

And so now we have like the big one we built back in 2018. We built smaller one in three hospitals, and then we just built the first kitchen in a public school in Guamagana that is solar. Okay. From that standpoint, all our kitchen will be solar, we'll no longer use LPG gas uh as a source of energy. Okay. But I think also in terms of sustainability, so we have that aspect. We we opened a community benefit company. And our community benefit company is owned by the nonprofits. So there's no other shareholder into that company. And the idea is that we provide meals to big companies like factories, if you have 400 employees and above, with a profit, and the profit is sourced back into our free meals that we give to the patient. Then, on top of that, like for school meals, for example, we are working with the government of Rwanda in revamping the school meals program. Rwanda, the government feeds like 4.2 million children on a daily basis in school days. For us, we are piloting on almost 30,000. Looking at a 14-day rotation menu, looking at the ingredients that are used in the normal school feeding, and us, like in the normal school feeding is like five ingredients, we use 17 ingredients. And looking at the cost per meal, so as of that, the government actually provides almost 70% of the cost of the meal. And as we top up with 30%, but with the aim of having a meal that is subsidized 100% by the government. When it comes to the hospital, our plan of sustainability is that in each of the kitchens that we build in a public hospital, as of now, you can go to the Kigari Teaching Hospital. We then have the exclusivity of being the sole food provider, selling meals to doctors and nursing and having a little bit of money. But as you can understand, we are selling less meals than the ones that we are giving for free. And the third part of us of the sustainability is actually to work with the Ministry of Local Affairs, with Rwanda Social Security Board, to see on how to identify patients, because now there's no longer a social economical category, and see which ones can actually afford to contribute to the cost of their meal. Because when we talk about the patient, there's no profit added on. So when we said 700 is the cost of production to be able to provide that meal. And we are not looking to make any profits for the patient. So for us, those are the sustainability, but we know that philanthropy can be a big driver. And in philanthropy, there's this, you know, I think 15 years ago, 20 years ago, philanthropy was so afraid to actually work with governments, no trusting government, no things like that. Now the change has come. All the write-up, all the big people that write up like philanthropy are saying, ah, scale is only possible if you work with the government. So I'm happy that it's coming to change and for people to understand that governments are there also to enable philanthropic money to be able to be invested well, rightly, and in a way that can solve and end an issue, and for philanthropy to stop patching, you know, coming from one country to the other country, and then for people to be excited when they say we're in 72 countries. But when you look at the impact, but is there any one country where you can say we have solved this issue? So I think for us it's it's our way to sustainability. And we know we know that you can't eternally depend on donors, but we also know that there's money out there with people that want to actually solve the issue. And I think the most difficult part in fundraising is to connect with the right people.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:17

Do you think there's a time or a number where you'll be fully self-sustaining? Right? Without taking any money from, say, donors, local or foreign, where whatever you are able to generate from sales, it will be then be able to sustain the free meals that you're giving. Is there do you ever see that happening?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:46

No. We will always have to rely either on government and people paying for that services. Like for now, since Leicester RSSB, the Rwanda Social Security Board, is actually financing a quarter of all the meals we are giving in the hospital. And for us, this is a big, uh, uh, a great, I would say, stage for it to be known and understood that medical tailor meals do actually have an impact on the recovery of the patient. How much okay, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:41:18

So you've told me the cost of the meal, right? So it's uh between 700 to uh uh uh 50 cents to a dollar fifty usually. Now that's per meal. How much is government spending? Because now I want to understand the cost of the program for the state. Do you do do you do you have any kind of numbers? How much government is giving you?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:44

But now we we are we are just in few hospitals. So they are giving a quarter of the meals, not in terms of like last year we did almost in public hospital, almost one point 1.6 million meals in public hospital. So RSSB is contributing to a quarter of that. But when you look at the pricing of everything, because for it to be part of the hospital care, there has to be a policy and has to be for everybody. It can't be just for people that are going to Mohima, for people that are going to Say Ashoka, for people that are going in a specific hospital where Solid Africa is, then there's this add-on that the government is doing because it has to go through the procurement and the policy and the insurance to be able to do so. So as of now, we do it as a CSR. Now, when we look at globally, not globally, nationally, like for us, we have looked at what would it take us to arrive to 100% of the patient. As of now, we operate in five kitchens that are that are that are related to hospitals. To be able to achieve national coverage, you need 22 kitchens. We have mapped the whole country with the Ministry of Health. 22 kitchens, some are centralized, some are standalone. With those 22 kitchens, you arrive at almost a yearly budget of 10 million USD to be able to feed a million patients yearly. As of now, we feed 130,000 patients yearly, because as you understand, those 1,800, they change, they have a recovery, a length of stay.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:24

So for$10 million per year, patients, every patient in this country could have healthy meal.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:34

Yes. Without the CapEx, just as an OPEX.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:39

Yes. And the CapEx obviously is the kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:41

Yeah, the kitchen. Those 22, and we we've done it in a way that CapEx is not that much. So Capex would go around 12 million to 13 million USD.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:52

For all the kitchens in the 22.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:55

So meaning that some kitchens are centralized. Like as of now, our kitchen in Seashwika is providing food to Kibagawaga Hospital, Nyarugenge Hospital, Muhima Hospital. So it's to do those kind of models, and for hospitals that are too far, then you do a standalone kitchen.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:14

So the number is for about you said 10 million dollars per year for uh the the the opex and about 13 million dollars for the capex. Yes. So for about 23 million dollars a year, year one, everyone can have that's a lot of money, but it's also not. Yes, because I have seen I've seen cars in in this city of ours that cost a hundred thousand dollars and it's just a single car just moving around. I I I hate to bring it back to the state, but it's not that much. So like when you look at it, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:10

It is because somebody has to pay for it. So at the end of the day, you know, you talked about taxes and how the money is invested and how all of that is done. So either for the insurance, and that's why it didn't work, our entry it didn't work in a sense when when they started the insurance, everybody was paying the same amount of money, which was 1,000. Then the government noticed that some people couldn't even afford 1,000, but some people could afford 3,000.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:38

So some people can afford 10.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:39

Some people can afford 10. And that's why now everybody who works has a contribution to the public insurance to be able to find money to put in that common basket, if I can call it that way, and for people to have health care. So now, at the end of the day, though it doesn't look like a lot of money, the those 10 million has to be sustained year to year. So, how do you then sustain it and who pays for it? Because up until now, even our public entrance, having put cancer radiotherapy, when you look at the cost of the patient and how much they contribute, it's kind of a philanthropy, if I can call it that way, because you are not paying for your for your care in how affordable the care it is in Rwanda. Now, the fear of adding all of that is that without knowing who's gonna pay, is it the government who's paying at this percentage? Is it each of the patients to be able to do so? So that's the work we are doing also with the Ministry of Health and RCSB in understanding at scale what is it actually looking for, but also putting the economic behind. So now we are doing a study with Taft University. So Tafts University has the first and only food is medicine institute in the world. They have done extensive studies linking recovery rates to medically tether meals. So we are embarking in long studies with them, having random social security border RSB being part of the design and protocol for it to see that maybe in some of the cases it might be even a bigger investment looking at some illnesses to actually start doing it now and have food part of the hospital care. So all of it is financial modeling.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:27

Because I think food is is life, you know. It doesn't make sense to like like when you talk about, you know, when you're the very first person, Clementine, where she's getting thousands of dollars worth of treatment and she's literally getting weaker and weaker every day because the there's no food there.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:01

Yeah. I think it's not an issue that people are saying we don't see it. I think sometimes it's a thing of prioritization. Even me working in a hospital, for me, for the government, it was, I would say, um a bigger investment to go into school feeding and a higher risk of doing 4.2 million, but that was needed. And it's like problems are not like you have number one, number two, number three. I think that the government is trying to say how do we address the bigger issues, if I can call it that way, uh, in a way that is that is working. So when, because if you look at budget and what is done, Rwanda is unique. Unique in insurance, unique in feeding students, because feeding students also is a big, I will say, issue in many other countries, whereby you have to have the parents pay. If you don't pay, you don't get food. Here you still be fed. And then they will look after the parent contribution, but the government is putting most of the contribution. So for me, when it comes to the hospitals, is that, as I said, it's a status quo that has been there for such a long time. Solid Africa is probably the only organization tackling it in a way that is systemic in Rwanda, but also in many African countries, in the sense that everybody that we meet is like, even us is like that, but nobody is doing that. So we know it's gonna take us years to have that part of the systems, meaning that paid either by the government, either by the patient, or both. But as of today, where I'm sitting, I'm already happy with the contribution made for for for for that to arrive. And then we have a plan on how we can scale nationally and how we can have actually patient contribute and government contribution.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:57

I I hear you and and I understand, you know. With all the priorities and this, but it's one of those moments where I'm I I get sometimes frustrated because the the answers are right there, right? Like it's just right there. It's if they if a person is ill, they need to have there, you need to give the body the means to fight. And that's what food does. It gives the body the means to recover or to fight illness.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:32

And it doesn't make sense for you to spend money on drugs, yet either whether it's the white blood cells, they need it's but but they are you see, there are steps.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:47

I hear you. And and and and and as long as, and that's why for me, having that separation of doing, we will we will only live in frustrations. Because tomorrow, even when you have the food given, in other countries, they're complaining because the food is not good, it's like junk food and doesn't actually help people to heal. So, as we want to reprogram, meaning that if we do food, we do medically telemails. So, meaning that frustration always comes. But for you, if at least as a social entrepreneur and somebody who says, okay, what can we do? You have to see what is being done. I've been in hospital in the last 15 years. This when I say the difference is so huge that you don't even know where to start from. The fact that already today, because for them it's a matter of what does it, what does, what, what can how can I say that? What can kill you today if I have to invest? If I have to invest, even for me doing food, I would invest in cancer treatment before I invest in food. You see what I mean? Because there are people literally dying today because they didn't have chemiotherapy. When it was terms of the status quo of saying people, and that's why there were churches, well-wishers and all of that coming to bring food. We never saw a patient dying of hunger in the sense that they've done three weeks without eating and they're dying before because of that. So frustration doesn't build anything. I think for me, what builds something is construct like constructive mindset of okay, this is where we want to go.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:25

Let's build it.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:26

Let's build it step by step by step and also working with the environment, because you can't compete with that idea. And that's true. I mean, a hospital, even for me and my loved one, for my contribution of 3,000, the fact that I can have a radiotherapy will go a long way before any investment of saying somebody saying, okay, with your 3,000, we stop the radiotherapy and then you'll be able to have food. They will say no. Because when we started, we people used to go, we used even to buy medicine in Uganda for chemiotherapy. Like those mix of drugs, somewhere not even available. Yeah. So a lot has been done.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:05

I guess for me, I guess for me, it's it always goes back to can we go faster? Can we can we go faster? Can we get to the goal faster? What can we do? And I'm I love this conversation because for the first time I'm actually hearing the actual problem as well as the actual solution. Yes. Then now the the what happens between that is like, okay, what are the what's step one, step two, step three, step four, step five? I love the the uh the fact that at least we're not sitting and just saying, well, what has always been is how how it's always going to be. I'd like to, and this is the going to be the second last question. One of the things that I always say is that sometimes with things that are done in Rwanda, yes, because of the way our state is and the way our government is and the way our people are, solutions that make absolute sense cannot work elsewhere. Uh they make you laugh. I'm sure you're you're on Twitter as well, but I'm I love Twitter so much. That's where I get most of my information. And right now, what's happening in Kigali is that they're doing the rapid bus BRT, the bus rapid transport right networks. And so that you know we could get more people to use public transport. So government, the city of Kigali sat down and they said, okay, these roads are going to be used by only buses. And people with their personal cars will use one other side of the road. Now, of course, people do that, it starts, people take they they film it, and they put it on Twitter. You know, what how it will how it looks like. And and the reaction from across the continent because of those videos really got me thinking about what how people look at solutions and how they think it will work in their countries. The vast majority of the sentiments, the comments, and the retweets and and the quotes were ah, this would never work back over here. Our people would never let that happen. Only in Rwanda could that work. And it got me thinking, this solution, which is basic common sense, they they literally said, no, no, here it would not work because politicians would not let it work. You know, with their big cars, they will come and tick, and then the the motors would take up that space. It would never work here. It's a failure of how we conduct business here. All to say, you were able to one, as a small organization, one come together as young people. There are young people all across Africa, you will find those young people. But then when it came time to actually now the scaling, the scalability of the project, Russororo, for those who don't know, is not a slum. It is not, you know, 50,000 kilometers away from Kigali. It is in one of the nicer neighborhoods. Yes. You know, if if government, it was government land, if government had wanted to sell those plots, they'd have made those are some of these are hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollar plots. They gave government gave that to you.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:24

Did you pay for it?

SPEAKER_05 1:57:26

No.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:26

Okay. To walk into the first lady's office and and not be either a relative or and then get that kind of money to take that industrial kitchen or even allow you to start thinking. I don't know if that could be all to say, you were extremely lucky that you were able to build this organization in this country. So say someone is listening to this conversation, they are in Nigeria.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:06

They have they see the same problem that you see, because this is not a problem that is only in Rwanda. The the idea of people getting meals when that are good for them. That's not a problem that's only here. It's in most African countries. Can the the model that you've created, can it be scaled? Can it be introduced into countries that are not Rwanda?

SPEAKER_02 1:58:39

Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:40

How?

SPEAKER_02 1:58:41

It can be introduced because it's solving an issue that they have. So first in answering to the problem that they have, then it can be scalable. On the how, for me, you know, there are a lot of people that succeed, that succeed in Nigeria. How do they do it? There must be a way when you understand your own environment. For me, I will not be tempted in going in another country before I feel that, before we know that Solid Africa is actually solving the problem here in Rwanda. But what I know is that no organization that are in Nigeria are in all of those countries, to which scale we might not do something different, but they've been able to implement what they have implemented in their own country. What I know is that being in Rwanda, a lot of those things comes easier. And the investment comes easier. As you said, having land that are done for that, having prices, like all of that awards that the Imbuto Foundation and the First Lady Foundation give, they are looking at the country. They are sporting young people that are doing something in the country. And already that acknowledgement is for the country. I've seen all of those small things that we are doing. But also we are small and highly danced country. I think that many of the solutions on how we can scale nationally also become easy because on Rwanda and how small it is. If I was in Kenya or Nigeria talking about scaling, it would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to be able to say I can be in the whole country and be able to do so. But for us, we called it Solid Africa because we're talking about the solidarity of Africans, about how Africans are solid, as the continent is solid, the people are solid. And just for us to, you know, that I like as an how can I say that as an inspiration on how this issue can be tackled across the continent. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:40

Last question. So one of the things that I find most fascinating about you is that you do not have to be this. You know, for those who don't know you, your your father is uh it's he's not just uh a normal man. You know, he is, he is, of course. But for us who live in Rwanda, uh his name means something. His name is Polistene, an RPF historical, former deputy, head of the Rwandan parliament, ambassador. So you were born into that. Someone could say, and they would not be wrong to say that you're you you were very privileged. A lot of people across Africa, when they think about people who come from privileged backgrounds, they don't think that they see the problems of Africa. You know, they they've they're always in private jets, big cars, living a life that is very separated from the reality of their citizens. I'd like to ask you, you know, very often we are the products of our upbringing. You know, as a daughter of polystyene, RPF Historical, a person whose life has been about public service and sacrifice and getting people back home and and fighting that good fight. How has how have his values and his value system how were they imprinted onto you to ensure that you never then became the the the person who could have become a problematic rich kid? You get what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:07

Yes. I think for me that first of all, living in ababa is a choice. It's a choice that you make every day because misery is everywhere. So it's a choice for you to live in Ababa or not. But when it comes to our upbringing and what my dad and but also my mom has instilled in us is that we came back in 1994 and actually came back during the genocide.

SPEAKER_06 2:03:32

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:33

Yes, in in May. And the idea. Wait.

SPEAKER_06 2:03:36

Yes, let's go slowly. What do you mean you came back in May?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:41

Because the in Burundi the situation was also, I would say, troubling, a lot of killings. Even in the neighborhood where we were, you would wake up in the morning and see a corpse not far from where you lived. So, and my dad was already in Rwanda, and they were taking, and the RPF was taking some of the section like Nyamata, going on, Gwamagana. So my mom thought that we would be safer going into the areas where RPF had already control than us staying in Burundi with everything that was happening. So for us, what was in still, and when we came to Rwanda because of all the stories we had heard about the family you have in Rwanda, my dad didn't have only a little sister that was living with us, but more than that, we didn't know anybody from.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:30

How old were you then?

SPEAKER_02 2:04:31

So I was yes, 94, almost nine, almost nine years old. But for us, what is was in still for us coming in a rwanda that was full of destruction, destruction, destruction?

SPEAKER_06 2:04:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:46

Full of destruction was that idea that Rwanda, because they used to say that Rwanda is the country of honey and milk. Yes. You know, we were singing songs about Rwanda, learning month. So me, little, I thought that Rwanda would be like a paradise. Like her people are saying like her paradise is. I thought everything was green, everybody was nice, and then the whole family and the thing. So that's what I had in my head. So when we came to Rwanda, nothing was like what we imagined.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:18

Where were you at that time?

SPEAKER_02 2:05:19

So mostly in Guamagana. We spent Yamata, but we guessed it up, but maybe two nights. So mostly we stayed in Guamagana up until Kigari was taken in July, and then we came to Kigari.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:29

So people who don't know Ramagana, Ramagana is in eastern Rwanda, maybe about 100 kilometers away from Kigari, maybe 200. Yeah. 150. Small, so it's a small town, small, uh it could say maybe maximum at the time, probably because there was there had been the genocide there as well. So it may be 2,000 people.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:54

We didn't see at all. There were not a lot of people. Yeah. Even in the street, even like we used to live in houses that were from, you know, Palme, which were not of those extremist parties, and looking at everything, there are books, there are things like that. But I think for us, what was instilled in us was we didn't come in this country to be actually live in a paradise. We came to build it. And in building it is it's a responsibility of every Rwandan. Young, old, we don't care. Is that everybody has to be working for us not to go back to where we are. So for me, I think that what was instilled in us is that nobody will come to build this country except us. So if we see an issue, don't complain. Do something. Because who are you complaining to? Everybody is doing the maximum that they can do. We can do better always, we can do greater always. But for me, we have to all have a sense of responsibility of what we can take on and build on with other people. So for me, and even as going to study abroad, it was always the contract that you go study and then you come back.

SPEAKER_06 2:07:07

Contract with who?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:09

With our parents, yes. Contract with our parents, but I don't have a contract that is written at the more rhetorical contract, but it was instilled in that like you are going to look for knowledge to help the country. You are not going to have knowledge to build other countries, but to build those this country where we are. So, yeah, so for me, I'm really frustrated by the problem. I'm mostly frustrated by the inaction and the waiting and the it should be done like this, it should be done like this, it should be like done like this. Like, let's do it then. If we know how better it could be, let's just do it.

SPEAKER_06 2:07:52

Let's just do it. I think that phrase, let's just do it, should be the concluding statement of this interview. Wow. You've uh you've left me thinking I need to do more. I need to maybe think about beyond the work that I do, right? I I always say that, you know, some of the conversations I have, I'm thinking it's helping me, it's helping build the country, it's helping build the continent. But maybe get my hands dirty as well. And I think that's where you know us city guys, city people do. We intellectualize. You know, we say, ah, but we pay taxes. Ah, you know, this is a problem that's too big. I don't want to get my hands dirty. And and you've made me feel like I should get my hands dirty. If I wanted to get my hands dirty with Solid Africa, maybe this is the last question. Yes. Sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:10

No, no.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:11

How do I do that? How do I help the work that you do?

SPEAKER_02 2:09:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:18

In a really practical way.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:20

Okay. So in a really practical way, we are open, we have what we call the farm to plate experience, where we take you through the farm or the different cooperatives into our kitchens, and then you actually deliver food to patients.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:35

How do we do that?

SPEAKER_02 2:09:36

Yes. So if you go to our website, there's a way of where you can get into it.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:40

What's the website?

SPEAKER_02 2:09:41

www.solidafrica.org, solidafricainoneword.org, to be able to do that. You can have the farm to play it, but some people actually come and just spend time into the farm. They come more time and then they give the expertise. They do so. You can always find something to do in Solid Africa with your time, with team building for companies. But then also we have a campaign that we are running called We Are Solid Together. Because, as I said, the whole thing was like a community being together and saying, like with 1,000 Randan Francs, you can provide a meal to a patient in a public hospital. So when you are eating, when you are at lunch, when you are out, or things, if you think USSD code, you can just provide 1,000.

SPEAKER_06 2:10:25

What's the USSD code? Do you remember it? I'll put it in the description of this episode. Um because again, we cannot, I think as a society, we cannot progress unless the most vulnerable among us has life. And if you can, why not?

SPEAKER_05 2:10:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:10:51

You know? For as little, you said as little as 1,000 francs? Yes. That's literally 80 cents.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:58

That's 80 cents. And if you look at the cost of like breakfast, for example, it's like you can give three breakfasts with that because it's like 300 francs for that entry meal that we call the Lacdo breakfast. So there's no, I think there's no real contribution in terms of fund. And if you have time, really you are the most welcome. Without having guests, for us, at the end of the day, food is love. And that's the business we are in, is, and that's why we call our program Kugemura. Kugemura. Yeah, it's a random word, like in a random meaning bringing food to somebody, but mostly you bring food to somebody, either that is going through pain, that lost somebody that is in a hospital to comfort them, or somebody that it's in a way where they are too happy when people give birth. It's not sad, but people bring you food because they know you are too busy taking care of that new baby to be able to think about it.

SPEAKER_06 2:11:54

But fundamentally, it's about support.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:55

Yes, it's about support, it's about comfort. So that's what we do, and that's why we belong. That food is love, and we know that you know there's no secret in our ingredient. We share that with our patient, with the teachers, with the student, with the families, for them to replicate. I would say that the only thing that we try to put is love in our meals.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:19

Isabel, thank you for challenging me. Thank you for opening your eyes. And you've certainly opened my eyes to something that I had known, but I had not really ever internalized.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:41

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:43

It's been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:44

Yes, for me too. It was a pleasure and a longer verdure. So yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:49

And I can't wait to see what the future holds for you.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:54

And for the country.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:59

And then it's been amazing. Yeah. And then welcome to see our farm to to folk.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:06

Actually, I think that's that's something that lets organize it next week.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:10

I'd love to come with my team, maybe with a camera or two, and just kind of discover and maybe get my hands dirty a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:20

We love that.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:21

That's exciting, kind of scary, but it's about. Thank you so much. Thank you. And that's a wrap for today's conversation. Thanks for staying with us till the very end. It really means a lot. I'd love to know what was the one moment that really stood out to you? Drop it in the comments so that we can keep the discussion going. If you want to connect with us beyond YouTube or streaming platforms, you can find us on the social media platform of your choice. And if this has sparked something for you, share it with a friend who'd love it too. Until next time, have a great week.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:03

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