Mukamuhoza Mamerita: The Kiyombe Weaver Whose Cooperative Built 25 Houses
Meet the Maker · Rwanda
Mukamuhoza Mamerita: The Kiyombe Weaver Whose Cooperative Built 25 Houses
A subsistence farmer with no cash income joined Gahaya Links in 2003. Today she is president of a 130-woman cooperative in Rwanda's Eastern Province, and the record of what their weaving has paid for is written in iron roofs.
Mukamuhoza Mamerita, president of the Kiyombe cooperative. Photo courtesy Gahaya Links.
Mukamuhoza Mamerita is a master weaver with Gahaya Links and the president of a weaving cooperative in Kiyombe, in Rwanda's Eastern Province, with 130 women weavers. Before she joined Gahaya Links in 2003 she was a subsistence farmer with no source of income. Under her leadership the cooperative has completed 25 iron-sheet-roofed houses, and its members can now pay for food, clothing, their children's tuition, and health insurance. I have written about the five master weavers Gahaya Links publicly recognizes in The Women Behind Gahaya Links. This profile stays with one of them.
Who is Mukamuhoza Mamerita?
Every documented fact about Mamerita comes from Gahaya Links, the Rwandan handicraft company that trains and buys from her cooperative, so this is a short profile with hard edges. She lives and works in Kiyombe, a rural area of Rwanda's Eastern Province. Before 2003 her household lived on what it grew. She joined the Gahaya Links network in the company's first years, learned the agaseke coil to the standard the company sells at, and rose to lead the Kiyombe cooperative as its president.
The title matters in practice. A Gahaya Links cooperative president is the person who organizes the group's production, holds it to the quality Gahaya Links will accept, and answers for the money. At Kiyombe that is 130 women, which makes it one of the larger single cooperatives in a network of 52.
What has the Kiyombe cooperative's weaving paid for?
Twenty-five houses with iron-sheet roofs. In rural Rwanda an iron roof replaces thatch or tarpaulin, keeps the rainy season out, and is the first visible sign that a household has moved from subsistence to income. Gahaya Links reports the same pattern across its network: cooperatives have built iron-roofed housing, and weaving earnings are what send children to school and put nutritious food and clean water within reach.
The company's network-wide figures give Kiyombe's record some scale. Gahaya Links reports that 100 percent of its weavers hold health insurance through Rwanda's Mutuelle de Santé scheme, 80 percent have their own bank accounts, 40 percent have started their own businesses, and 10 percent have become local leaders. Mamerita is one of the 10 percent.
The weaver is the first person paid, not the last. Every Rwandan basket at RFB Woven Art is bought directly from Gahaya Links through its US representative, Sarah Mutesi Ban, and Gahaya Links pays its cooperatives fair, competitive wages and then, in its own words, goes beyond wages to provide basic life services. That is the chain between a tower in a collector's living room and a roof in Kiyombe.
What does a Kiyombe weaver actually make?
The agaseke is Rwanda's traditional lidded coil basket. It appears on the national seal, is given at weddings and births, and is known as the basket of peace. The coil is sweetgrass; the wrap that carries the pattern is sisal, hand-dyed in terracotta, indigo, burgundy, and black or left natural. The tall pieces RFB carries, 54 to 65 inches, are built in two layers: an inner framework of woven bamboo splints for height and rigidity, then the sweetgrass and sisal outer layer worked upward around it. The lid is woven separately and fitted. Gahaya Links weavers took years to refine the tall form, and a single piece takes weeks of sustained work.
The stitch that builds an agaseke: a needle, a wrapped coil, and one pass at a time.
How to read one of these baskets with a collector's eye: hold it at arm's length and look at the coil. On a well-made agaseke the coils are the same thickness from base to rim, the sisal wrap covers the sweetgrass completely with no core showing between stitches, and the geometric pattern stays symmetrical as the form widens and narrows. Then set the lid. It should seat cleanly with no rocking. Each weaver's geometry is slightly her own, which is why no two agaseke from the same cooperative are identical, and why a piece with a slightly different pattern rhythm is a signature, not a flaw.
The agaseke is a centuries-old form that was once woven for Rwandan royalty. Each piece at this scale is one of one and never restocked, and the tall version is stocked by very few US sources. A basket that took weeks to coil by hand in Kiyombe holds its value the way a signed print does: the maker is known, the cooperative is known, and the object cannot be made again.
Twenty-five iron roofs is the clearest measure of a basket I know.
— Jen, RFB Woven ArtWhy RFB Woven Art works with Gahaya Links
I vet every partner by one test: can it show me what it has changed? Gahaya Links was founded by sisters Joy Ndungutse and Janet Nkubana after the 1994 Genocide, starting with 27 women. The network now includes more than 5,000 women weavers in 52 cooperatives across all 30 districts of Rwanda, reaching over 40,000 families. It is built on fair trade principles, paying fair and competitive wages and funding basic life services beyond them. It holds no formal certification, and I do not claim one for it. What I can point to is Kiyombe: 130 women, 25 roofs, a former subsistence farmer running the books.
Jennifer Kuyper sources RFB's Rwandan collection directly from Gahaya Links cooperatives, with no wholesaler in between. The margin an intermediary would take goes back into the cooperatives instead.
If you own a Rwandan piece from RFB, it came out of this network, and there is a fair chance it came through a cooperative run by a woman like Mamerita. Set it on the floor or a low table where the full height reads, keep it out of direct sun, and know what it paid for.
❤️ Jen at RFB Woven Art
Mukamuhoza Mamerita and the Kiyombe Cooperative: Common Questions
Who is Mukamuhoza Mamerita?
Mukamuhoza Mamerita is a master weaver with Gahaya Links and the president of a 130-woman weaving cooperative in Kiyombe, in Rwanda's Eastern Province. She was a subsistence farmer with no cash income before joining Gahaya Links in 2003. Under her leadership the cooperative has completed 25 iron-sheet-roofed houses, and members can now afford food, clothing, children's tuition, and health insurance.
What are agaseke baskets made of?
Rwandan agaseke baskets are coiled from sweetgrass and wrapped in hand-dyed sisal. The tall 54 to 65 inch pieces are built over an inner framework of woven bamboo splints that gives them height and rigidity. They are not made from elephant grass, which is the material of Ghana's Bolgatanga baskets, a different tradition.
Is Gahaya Links fair trade certified?
No. Gahaya Links is built on fair trade principles, paying fair and competitive wages and providing basic life services beyond wages, but it does not hold a formal fair trade certification. RFB Woven Art describes it as a fair trade principles organization, not a certified one.
How does buying a Rwandan basket support weavers like Mamerita?
RFB Woven Art buys every Rwandan basket directly from Gahaya Links through its US representative, Sarah Mutesi Ban, so no wholesaler sits between the cooperative and the collector. Gahaya Links reports that its 5,000-plus weavers all hold health insurance, 80 percent have bank accounts, and cooperatives such as Kiyombe have built iron-roofed housing from weaving income. For documented outcomes across all six RFB traditions, see What a Basket Buys.
Which other RFB weavers are profiled on the blog?
Gahaya Links master weavers Mukakamanzi Theresa, Nyiransabimana Eliane, Muhimpundu Fatina, and Ephigenia Mukantabana are profiled in The Women Behind Gahaya Links. Panama's Wounaan weavers, including Sara Jinguimia of Majé and the Negria sisters of Chepo, and Ghana's Alebdel and Paulina each have their own Meet the Maker pages. See What a Basket Buys, Sara Jinguimia, The Negria Sisters, and Alebdel and Paulina.
