From @Jonomist in Medium:
Continuing:In the West, the Maker Movement is a counter-culture. Makers are fighting the march towards dependency and consumerism.
image courtesy of Medium
In Rwanda, however, making is the national doctrine: self-reliance, innovation, learning-by-doing, building, breaking, borrowing, upcycling, evolving…
Next month we will remember the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. In the intervening years since one of the most destructive 100-days in human history, Rwanda has built and re-built everything from government institutions to infrastructure to public trust to food production.
Rwanda is a small land-locked country in the centre of Africa, so imports are expensive. But, making is not just about substituting cheap ready-to-consume retail. In Rwanda, making is the cultural direction: we are all united behind a national ambition to build solutions. Rwanda has reduced poverty at a rate faster than anywhere in the history of the world outside of East Asia, because communities are empowered to own the development agenda.More here