Abateraninkunga Ba Sholi Co-operative — known as Aba Sholi — was founded in 2008 by 30 women in Cyeza sector, Muhanga District, in the heart of Rwanda’s Southern Province. What began as a mutual-assistance group, with no washing station and no profitable route to market, has grown into a thriving community of 610 producers united by a shared commitment to quality, equality, and care for the land. The co-operative’s name, “Abateraninkunga”, translates to “mutual assistance” in Kinyarwanda, and that value runs through everything it does. In 2014, Aba Sholi opened its own washing station. In 2015, it became Fairtrade certified and won the Rwanda Cup of Excellence Award. Today, its Kundwa Women Coffee group — a women-only producer committee — is at the heart of the lot we source for our Rwanda single origin.