Since launching our digital Agriculture Library in Zimbabwe last month, our team has been hard at work developing a version of the library localized for Rwanda with our partners at Bridge2Rwanda Farms. During our visit last November, we discussed the need to curate more content in Kinyarwanda — the primary language spoken by most Rwandan farmers.
More than 1.7 million Rwandan households — 70% of the population — are engaged in smallholder farming to help feed their families. So making relevant information on climate-smart and conservation agriculture accessible is crucial for communities’ long-term resilience.
Earlier this month, our library specialist Sara Jordan and our co-founder and technical advisor Bruce Baikie flew to Kigali to start this important work alongside four Bridge2Rwanda interns.
The interns began by translating library metadata categories from English to Kinyarwanda to help standardize the curation process and make the library’s local language resources more searchable. When they noticed that certain local crops and farming techniques were missing from this list, it immediately sparked ideas about what types of content to look for while curating.
The team then compiled a set of selection guidelines, including library user profiles and Rwanda-specific information, and began curating resources from the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board and Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources websites.
One of the interns is also translating the library’s interactive Foundations for Farming lessons into Kinyarwanda! Sara will continue to meet with them virtually each week through the end of May.
The interns began by translating library metadata categories from English to Kinyarwanda to help standardize the curation process and make the library’s local language resources more searchable. When they noticed that certain local crops and farming techniques were missing from this list, it immediately sparked ideas about what types of content to look for while curating.
The team then compiled a set of selection guidelines, including library user profiles and Rwanda-specific information, and began curating resources from the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board and Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources websites.
One of the interns is also translating the library’s interactive Foundations for Farming lessons into Kinyarwanda! Sara will continue to meet with them virtually each week through the end of May.
In the afternoons, Sara and Bruce met with leaders in several international nonprofits to discuss the potential for partnering on content for the library. Their visit also included a follow-up trip to Sunzu Yacu Community Library, which has been using a SolarSPELL library for the last six years.
We are so excited to continue this work alongside B2R Farms and are looking forward to a long and successful partnership.
