Tom Paulson's Blogs
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- November 15, 2011
- Rwanda
- by Tom Paulson
Mountain Gorillas With Journalists in the Midst
No visit to Rwanda is complete without seeing the mountain gorillas. Here’s one who came to have a closer look at us.
After a whirlwind week of meeting with Rwandan officials, business leaders, local journalists, activists and others in the capital city of Kigali, we took off for a few days to journey high up into the Birunga mountain range to the northern town of Kinigi, near the Congo and Ugandan borders.
I’m traveling with a group of American journalists sponsored by the -
- November 11, 2011
- Rwanda
- by Tom Paulson
Rwanda’s Future Could Depend Upon a Really Good Cup of Coffee
Farmers sorting coffee beans at a Technoserve cooperative.
Most Rwandans are poor farmers.
And most depend upon growing coffee for half or more of their annual income.
A four-year-old social enterprise project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation appears to be helping farmers significantly increase their income by taking better advantage of this mountainous nation’s fairly unique ability to grow the best coffee in the world.
By geographical happenstance — very high -
- November 09, 2011
- Rwanda
- by Tom Paulson
Rwanda Is Empowering Girls, With a Little Help From Seattle
The first class of the Rwanda Girls Initiative, launched by two Seattle women.
It has become a mantra in aid and development circles today to say that empowering girls is the single most effective means of fighting poverty, inequity and any number of ills in poor countries.
This is one of the international community’s top priorities, for good reason.
But saying and doing are two different things. Talk is cheap, they say.
Paul Kagame’s government in Rwanda is clearly walking the -
- November 08, 2011
- Rwanda
- by Tom Paulson
Transforming Kigali, Murder Mystery Site and Hotel Rwanda
Overlooking Kigali, Rwanda
The first thing a seasoned traveler might notice about Rwanda’s capital city Kigali is how clean and ordered it is, as compared to many other cities in Sub-Saharan Africa (or anywhere, for that matter).
Not much garbage and no plastic bags flying around. They’ve been banned here. The grass and foliage in the traffic medians are well-tended. All the motorcyclists wear helmets and travel at the speed limit. People smile a lot and ask you how they can -
- November 07, 2011
- Rwanda
- by Tom Paulson
Re:Visiting Rwanda: A Closer Look at an African Success Story
Flickr, extremeboh
Gorillas in the mist. Mass genocide. The movie ‘Hotel Rwanda’ and maybe coffee.
Those are the things most people say when Ralph Coolman asks them what they know about Rwanda — a tiny central African nation that has had (and is still having) a profound impact on the West’s view of Africa, on the international community’s view of itself and the whole concept of aid and development.
Seattle is connected to Rwanda in a number of ways, beginning with the
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