RED ROCKS SUCCESS STORIES 2022

Red Rocks Rwanda (http://redrocksrwanda.com) is a social enterprise that is all about the community, the wildlife, tourism & travel thus promoting sustainable tourism through community and conservation programs, a cultural tourism scheme that involves developing community and promoting nature preservation through tourism.  Red Rocks brings under-served communities into the tourism supply chain and supports community development projects that help people help themselves through Red Rocks Initiative for Sustainable Development, a non-profit organization. (http://redrocksinitiative.org/).

 The non-profit organization has launched many projects, through the support of our social enterprise which help local communities get access to education, health care and sustainable income that honours their traditional way of life, which provides a sustained, reliable source of funding for the local organization through the tourism industry. the organization created a respectful environment where the local community feels comfortable with tourists and work to position conservation as a competitive land use that delivers benefits to local communities, creates jobs, stimulates local micro-enterprise development, promotes local procurement, develops skills and knowledge and ultimately improves livelihoods within the Volcanoes National Park. 

Our focus are sustainable tourism, conservation, and community management. We guarantee well-intended tourism, focused on environmental conservation and community development activities. Our mission is to enhance the standards of living of local communities in the Virunga massif region by benefitting from environmental conservation and sustainable tourism through trade in their talents, art, music, and cultural diversity’, which encourages to implement our vision ‘to integrate environmental conservation and sustainable tourism for peacebuilding and community development’, with the goal to ‘provide a sustained, reliable source of funding for the local organization through the tourism industry.

Red Rocks for Sustainable development project initiatives success and Impacts:

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION INITIATIVE

We have worked with community partners and cooperatives to host farm tours and farm activities, like planting indigenous fruit trees and learning about domestic farm animals and horticulture. Protection and Preservation of endangered tree spices for tradition herbs and medical plants communities used to poach in National Parks, we have been and still establishing tree nursery bedding to supply to communities where at current we have supplied more than 100.000 tree seedlings to the communities adjacent to volcanoes National park.

 CONSERVATION RESEARCH

We have been conducting action research primarily focusing on the flora and fauna around the Volcanoes National Park, whereby our team prepares advice on natural and ecological resource management. Conservation education awareness rising within communities, Schools and among beekeeping cooperatives while passing the message for animals that can’t speak themselves

 ART FOR CONSERVATION INITIATIVE

Art for conservation, the culture of the communities we serve are intricately tied to the natural world surrounding them. So we help local communities to preserve not only the volcanoes National park flora and fauna, through artisan of animals which can’t speak for itself, but also the historic cultures and traditional arts of the region, for communities to gain access to sustainable sources of income from tourism in order to install in them a sense of preserving the national park environment.

 SKILLS DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE

We enable Women banana bark weaving association for widowed single mothers in skills development so that with the income earned from selling woven baskets, mats, and other artisanal pieces, these mothers gain financial independence for themselves and their children for the alternative of what they used get from the protected area.

 AGRICULTURE PROJECT

We support small-scale subsistence farmers who neighbour protected areas. We train local farmers to compost manure, maintain ecologic organic agriculture practices to conserve biodiversity as well as creating into them the culture of financial savings for sustainable development.

 EDUCATION INITIATIVE

Education leads to opportunity. We promote educational opportunities, including volunteer-led English programs and computer literacy, as a way to expand local youths’ resources and broaden their horizons and we get opportunity to educate these younger children to understand and develop a strong awareness about forests, wildlife, and conservation.