One founder, two organizations
Rebuild Women's Hope is a coffee cooperative on the island of Idjwi in Lake Kivu, and it is the Foundation whose website you are reading. The two share a founder, a name and a community. They do different work, and this page explains how they fit together.
The Cooperative, since 2013
Marcelline Budza founded the Rebuild Women's Hope Cooperative (RWHC) in 2013 on Idjwi, an island in Lake Kivu in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It began as a cooperative of women coffee farmers and later opened to men because, in RWH's words, for women to thrive, mutual support and cooperation with the men in the community is important, and many men were keen to join. It now aims for equal representation of women and men.
The Cooperative is a business owned by its members. It buys their coffee cherry, processes it at its own washing stations on Idjwi and at Kalehe on the mainland, and sells the finished coffee to roasters and importers in Europe and North America. The coffee is Red Bourbon and Blue Mountain, grown between about 1,500 and 2,000 meters. Every sale returns income to the farmers who grew it.
Marcelline is the Cooperative's President. The Cooperative has its own website, with its coffee, its washing stations and its buyers.
Visit the Cooperative website
The Foundation, since 2024
A cooperative can grow, process and sell coffee. It is not built to run a health center, train women in literacy and business, or stand beside a survivor of violence in court. Those needs were there in the same villages, and they were the reason the Rebuild Women's Hope Foundation (RWHF) was created in 2024.
The Foundation is a nonprofit organization. It receives grants and donations and runs three programs for the communities the Cooperative serves: economic development, health care, and women's rights. Marcelline is its Executive Director. This website belongs to the Foundation.
How they fit together
The Cooperative and the Foundation work in the same villages with the same families. A woman who sells her coffee through the Cooperative may bring her child to a health center the Foundation supports, and join a savings group the Foundation started.
The money is kept separate. Coffee income belongs to the Cooperative and its members. Donations to the Foundation go to the Foundation's programs. If you want to buy coffee, contact the Cooperative. If you want to support health care, education and women's rights in these communities, you are in the right place.
Support the Foundation