In Kigeme refugee camp, tucked in Rwanda’s Southern Province, you can often hear the clatter of aluminum pots before you see the women. The process of dyeing imigwegwe—the stiff, fibrous material used to make traditional baskets—is long and slow. First it must be boiled, then separated, dyed, dried, and finally woven into goods ready for market. “We sometimes wait hours for one pot to boil,” says Kabatesi Tumusifu, “because there are many of us and not enough tools. But we wait our turn. We work around each other’s needs.”

Tumusifu, a 43-year-old Congolese refugee and mother of five, has lived in Kigeme camp since 2011. Like many others in the camp, her family depended on limited humanitarian assistance. But with three children now in secondary school, that was never going to be enough. “You learn quickly that if you want more for your children, you have to build it with your own hands,” she says matter-of-factly.

Her first business venture was selling ubushera, a fermented sorghum drink popular in the community. It required minimal capital and was easy to produce at home. But soon the market became saturated and Tumusifu began looking for, as she put it, “an alternative that could grow.”

In 2024, she joined a handcraft training where she learned to make agaseke baskets, bags, and Imigongo art using traditional techniques adapted for modern buyers. Alongside 39 other refugee women, she co-founded a cooperative and approached their project leader with a proposal. In response, they received a small startup grant and a guaranteed market to sell their products. “It wasn’t just the money,” she says. “It was the trust someone placed in us that we could deliver.”

And deliver they did. The cooperative now sells between 50 and 70 baskets a month at 8,000 RWF profit per piece, generating consistent income and keeping over 40 households afloat. “It’s not always regular,” she adds, “but it is enough to keep my children in school.”

A Reflection of World Refugee Day’s Call: Solidarity in Practice

This year’s World Refugee Day calls for global solidarity with displaced people—not only in rhetoric, but in practical systems that acknowledge refugees as contributors to their economies, communities, and futures.

Still, solidarity alone does not move markets. When Tumusifu and her team reached a production threshold, their challenge became scale. “We had the skills. But we didn’t know how to reach bigger buyers,” she says.

That’s where the partnership with Inkomoko began.

Since 2012, Inkomoko has worked with 100,000 refugee and host community entrepreneurs across East Africa to expand access to capital, consulting, and networks. In Kigeme, Inkomoko’s role began with tailored group training in financial management and evolved into direct business advisory—introducing Tumusifu and her cooperative to new pricing strategies, bulk production scheduling, and, crucially, expanded buyer networks beyond their initial clientele.

“It’s one thing to know how to make something,” Tumusifu reflects. “It’s another to understand how to sell it—again and again, and to the right people.”

What she wants, ultimately, is to open a vocational training space in the camp—teaching young women the same crafts that shifted her own life. “Not everyone will be able to leave this place,” she says. “But we can still give them something lasting. A skill. A way to stand.”

As we mark World Refugee Day, it is these models of community-led enterprise that remind us what solidarity should look like. Not handouts. Not headlines. But infrastructure, investment, and trust in the capacities that are already present.

“If you’re alive, and you have even a small chance—take it,” Tumusifu advises. “Don’t wait to be helped. Begin. Someone will meet you there.”

Let’s make sure we do. A good place to start is here: If you’re looking for innovation, look to refugee camps. If you’re looking for disciplined entrepreneurs, look to women who manage homes on UN stipends. If you’re looking for scalable impact, fund cooperatives.

And if you’re serious about solidarity, put it in writing. In your supply contracts. In your annual budgets. In your hiring frameworks.