During a prayer group hosted by Mama Zouzou in 2010, a woman by the name of Isabelle Kamariza proposed a prayer for the sick. To this end, Mama Zouzou suggested she put those prayers into action by taking some time out of her day to join her in serving food at the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali. The visit awakened Isabelle’s desire to serve patients in need, so she started soliciting funds from friends and prepared meals to feed more and more patients on her increasingly frequent visits to the hospital. However, she understood that to continue growing this mission, she would need to start an organization.

 

That same year, Isabelle Kamarinza, Mama Zouzou, and two of her friends, Audric Mitraros and Aniane Inkesha, started Solid’Africa. Among those who joined Isabelle’s mission was the late Mike Stenbock, whose idea was to build an industrial kitchen. Nine years later, the Mike Stenbock Gemura Kitchen was built, commemorating his name and inspiration for the project. Together with the Imbuto Foundation and the Fondation Mohammed VI Pour le Développement Durable, the first industrial kitchen in Rwanda came to life, with the capacity to cook 15,000 meals per day.

 

Today, Solid’Africa feeds over 1500 patients every day with three medically tailored meals. This organization has grown from serving one meal a day to 60 patients to now serving patients in five public hospitals for lunch, breakfast, and dinner. Since its creation in 2010, Solid’Africa has served over 5 million patient-tailored meals to almost 600,000 patients, and this number is rapidly growing.