Marie Ange Mukagahima

ZIMA HEALTHY GROUP (ZHG) Ltd, was legally commenced in 2017 by a young girl innovator with a core interest in adding value to pumpkins. The pumpkin has long been a popular vegetable in traditional Rwandan dishes and culture. Over the years, the product has been overlooked and forgotten. In 2017 a young Rwandan entrepreneur rediscovered the pumpkin as a healthy and nutritious food product. The innovation was originally called ZIMA ENTERPRISE. Zima does its large scale pumpkin grown by other farmers including the youth in Gatsibo district and Bugesera district and processes in Kigali where it employs 100% youth in its current contracted labor-power with a total number of 15 permanent workers with a majority of youth working as temporary sales agents. Zima Healthy has pumpkin suppliers from Rulido, Gatsibo, Bugesera, and Nyagatare districts. Zima provides well-handled seeds to farmers to motivate them to increase the scale of pumpkins and the enterprise gives them the market for the raw materials. Zima has had a sustainable development speed in the past years where it has expanded its sales from one district of operation (Muhanga) to currently 7 with a sight of expanding regional sales and international. Zima lives with a dream of employing millions of youth within Rwanda and East Africa as a whole. With improved capital, Zima expects to create more jobs for the youth and also the women in Rwanda and East Africa through training more rural women in pumpkin farming and buying their products at good price, through extending Zima branches to the local levels hence employing more women and youth. The company processes pumpkins and pumpkin seeds into a range of snacks, food ingredients, cooking oil and cosmetics. They have recently expanded into avocado, sesame, chia and cashew products. Pumpkins seeds are very rich in vitamins and minerals like manganese and vitamin K, both of which are important in helping wounds heal. They also contain Zinc, a mineral that helps the immune system fight bacteria and viruses. Also, pumpkins are very rich in vitamin C and beta-carotene which triggers the creation of white blood cells and increase the immunity of children in fighting infection and in pregnant women. This has left Zima products a major necessity in the diet of the children and pregnant women.