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Celestin Ntabanganyimana, 44, is a father of three, a farmer, and the president of his co-op group. But in his spare time, his passion is photography.
“This is something that I loved from childhood,” he says. “We would go to church for prayer, I could see people were taking pictures, I loved it.”
“Whenever I could take pictures I felt good, I felt very good. When you tell people how to stand, directing them, how you’re going to take pictures...when you have a camera, you feel good.”
Feeling good is not something that Celestin takes for granted. He and his wife, Apolinalia Mushimimana, have spent the last two years taking part in Concern’s Green Graduation programme in Gisagara, Rwanda.
“Before the project selected me, I had a child who had not gone to school, it was hard. And now, my kid has completed secondary 6. The other is in secondary 4. If we didn’t have Concern they would have dropped out, because I wasn’t taking care of them,” he recalls.
“When I received a wage, I took the money, I got drunk. I didn’t bring food, the kids didn’t get food, didn’t go to school. Those are the things the project has helped us with. Now at this time, our families live in harmony because of the trainings we received.”
Through Green Graduation, Celestin and Apolinalia received training in farming techniques, joined a Village Savings and Loans Association, and participated in gender transformative sessions to improve their relationship with one another.
The agricultural training that Celestin and his community members took part in gave them the opportunity to start a co-op together, which Celestin is the president of. It now has 21 members. The name of the co-op, Abahujimbaraga, means “people who bring strength together.”
“When you’re president, you’re the big person. You cannot say ‘I'm the president.’ Yes, you’re president but you have to do whatever everyone's decision is,” Celestin explains. “We make it as a team, and we always get ideas. Then you look for solutions for the issue that you’re facing.”
Celestin has learned how to plant and grow fruit trees, and how to divide his income into spending, saving, and investing. But what he has appreciated most of all is the support he received from Concern and our local partner, ARDI, to achieve his goals.
“They taught us to live in harmony, to have peace. Whatever you’re doing, you’re feeling good. It’s something great,” he shares. “We had people taking care of us. They’d ask ‘What are you going to use this money for?’ We had books where we could write the goals and I could write how I’m going to spend the money. After getting the money I could see I did this, I tick. Checklist. I tick, I did this.”
Thanks to this mindset, he has been able to earn an income from agriculture and with his savings he has bought two pigs. Once one of them gives birth, he plans to sell the piglets and use the money he receives to purchase a cow, so that his family can have manure for the crops and milk to drink.
And of course, his dream is to have his own camera. “Life is better, but if I had my own camera I could do it day and night,” Celestin says.
Celestin had a film camera when he was younger, but as this has now gone out of style he rents a digital camera to use at weddings and baptisms, where he is able to earn a small income taking photos. Unfortunately, renting the camera makes it difficult to plan in advance and means he often has to pay extra to ensure it’s available when he needs it.
“If I could get training or have my own camera it would work better. Sometimes I get a gig, but when I go to rent I find they’re out, others have taken them. When I get wedding gigs, I need to book them before. They charge me lots of money, then I get less money,” he explains.
This doesn’t change the love he has for taking photos. “Even if you have 300 pictures, with different poses the couple told you, you know them. When I go in the studio, we get the good ones and you check each and every one."
Thanks to the Green Graduation programme, Celestin’s outlook on life has changed and he feels positive about the future. “Remembering where I came from...whenever I could see people, I couldn’t join them. I was looking dusty, I didn’t have soap, I didn’t shower every day,” he says. “But now you see it’s been two years, and I’m looking good.”
