November 29, 2009

Musanze, Rwanda – As a community veterinarian practicing near Rwanda's Volcano National Park, Immaculée Mukamusoni sometimes walks as much as 22 miles a day to visit her patients, mostly sheep, goats, and cattle. The petit vet looks after some 1,700 farms in her sector, giving council to farmers, vaccinating and treating sick or injured animals, and performing artificial insemination on cattle. She takes no days off and usually works 13-hour days hauling 25 pounds of equipment up and down the hilly countryside. Many days it's impossible for her to see all the animals that need her help because the distance between farms is too much. Sometimes she is forced to choose one patient over another, and animals can die as a result.

However, Mukamusoni will now be able to attend to more veterinary patients, thanks to a new Project Rwanda cargo bike, a donation from a women's book club in Las Vegas.

"Transportation is one of my biggest challenges as a sector vet, but now that I can ride a bike between farms it will be much easier to do my job," said Mukamusoni through a translator. "I hope that one day all the sector vets will have cargo bikes."

The bike, a specially designed model with a sturdy, elongated frame and a large rear rack for carrying heavy loads, was supplied by Project Rwanda. Based in Musanze, Rwanda, the American-operated charity strives to further the economic development of Rwanda through initiatives based on the bicycle as a tool and a symbol of hope. Most of Rwanda's 11 million citizens are too poor to afford transportation of their own.

"Project Rwanda initially started out giving cargo bikes to coffee farmers so they could haul their crop to central locations, but now we're trying to reach others in rural communities who must also travel long distances to do their jobs," said Kim Coats, Project Manager of Project Rwanda. "After consulting with our friends at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project in Musanze, we decided that sector veterinarians, who cover so much ground to take care of their animal patients, would be perfect candidates to receive cargo bikes."

The Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP), which provides medical care to the wild mountain gorillas living in Volcanoes National Park, also works with sector veterinarians to improve the health of the local livestock.

"MGVP's goal is to ensure the good health of mountain gorillas, but it's impossible to achieve this when the domestic animals living near the gorillas are unhealthy," said John Huston, MGVP's Agriculture Project Coordinator. "There's a real threat of disease transfer between humans and domestic animals and gorillas, so it's essential we have good local veterinary services. Immaculée is one of the most talented vets we collaborate with, so we're very happy she can now see more animals and save time by riding her bike."

Project Rwanda and the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project plan to bring cargo bikes to more sector veterinarians in Rwanda once additional donors are identified. Donations be can made through the Project Rwanda website, www.projectrwanda.org. A gift of $300 covers the cost of one cargo bike.

For more information or high resolution photos, please contact:
Hilary Crowley, Director of Donor Acquisition and Fundraising, Project Rwanda
+1 702 813 7827
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www.projectrwanda.org

John Huston, Agriculture Project Coordinator, Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project
+250 (0) 783 842 544
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www.gorilladoctors.org