Travel Blog

Communities around the famous mountain gorilla's national park in Nyabigoma, Kinigi, Musanze district In the Northern Province supported by Rwanda Eco-Tours, have embraced the eco and cultural tourism concept by stopping poaching to raise their income levels through a participative approach as an incentive for conservation.

Having been poaching for centuries, given the human-wildlife conflicts around the park, communities have finally organised themselves to reap from their investment, the Iby'Iwacu Cultural Village, a concept that entails what gorilla trekkers have been missing, a place where people, culture and meet to appreciate the wonders of nature while meeting the history where the traditions still runs the modern world.

With a replica kings house/palace the second of its kind in the country, Iby'Iwacu Cultural Village boosts more than that,

• Community walk to experience the local ways of living, is what makes it authentic.
• Meeting the traditional healer and how he treats the village with his herbal medicine and learning from him and how he has a remedy for almost all diseases in the village is fascinating.
• Grinding millet and sorghum on the local grinding stone, pounding a couple of food stuffs in a motor is what leaves visitors to the village in awe.
• Cycling a local bicycle around the village
• Shooting the arrows with Batwa (pygmies) what Interests most as Munyarukiko, one of the village elders explains how they used to poach wildlife and now sharing the goodness of it.
• Of most seeing communities make local fire using wood, takes you back to our ancestors.
• As the traditional Intore dancers, all of whom have been active poachers for centuries share their amazing traditional dance, drumming sounds clapped with gorilla sounds brings close what human and wildlife miss in their search for inter-dependence.
• Youth poachers are trained in arts and crafts skills, women In knitting and men share their stories while a taste the famous local banana beer with visitors to the village goes around the corner.
• Other visitors take a hands-on route to participate In different community activities, participating In harvesting potatoes, fetching water, collecting firewood and cooking a meal.
• Visiting a local church, school, clinic etc,
• Talking to local elders and leaders, etc

All this is aimed at helping people to help themselves; each visitor to the village pays US $20 for all the activities in the cultural village, which all goes to the village fund. 40% goes directly to community members who do these activities , while 60% goes to the village fund which their committees’ communities decide where to invest the money, following the couple of projects (paying health insurance for families, buying high-breed seeds for agriculture, sponsoring children and buying scholastic materials, developing small scale businesses, not only to boost their food capacity and to deal with their economies of scale, but also to start enterprise to benefit from tourism and be part of the conservation efforts to save the endangered species In their neighbourhood.

This an opportunity for people to visit the village while contributing to the local economy in a way that sustains efforts to conserve nature and natural resources for generations.

Following this great effort, poaching is reducing, community conservation scouts born and education message well send and taken by and among their community. We believe the village is fascinating with a variety of cultural experiences it can offer, and perhaps the best way to get to know local people, their ways of living, their culture, traditions and history Is to take part and experience their daily life activities.