Joy Umubyeyi (Class of 2028, Rwanda), a Mastercard Foundation Scholar at EARTH University, arrived in the fall of 2024. It is easy to see when you meet her that she is a deeply compassionate and caring person who is committed to helping her family and community.
Joy comes from a rural village in the Rwamagana area, where most people are subsistence farmers. At home, her mother tends a small plot with maize, beans, and the type of banana that is used to make the national dish, matoke. Her father has a small shop at the market, selling the harvest the family doesn’t eat at home. The fourth of six children, Joy is the only one in her family who has been able to pursue a higher education degree. When she speaks, you can feel the deep love she has for her country and people. She also expresses an understanding of the obstacles that stand in the way for them to make a decent living.
In part, this is what led her, in Grade 10, to choose geography as a focus of studies, with an understanding that the physical characteristics of a region, including climate, soil type, topography, water availability, and access to sunlight, directly influence what crops can be grown. She then started to become more interested specifically in agriculture, even when many people around her encouraged her to study economics or business. “My classmates all wanted to go into software or civil engineering. I was the only one interested in agriculture. I wanted to understand the land in order to understand how people grow food. I felt sad seeing my mother and so many people in our community using all of their energy to farm and seeing so little results,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I saw my mother work so hard and some days she didn’t know if she would have food to give to us.”
After graduating from high school, to complete the one-year community volunteer requirement that all Rwandans are expected to do, Joy chose an organization that works with youth and assists people working their land. She also joined an Environment Club on a project that gives fruit and other food to young children to provide them with better nutrition. This reinforced her desire to study agriculture and make a difference, applying her sensitive spirit and drive to her future career.
She applied to many universities to make sure she could pursue her dream. When she applied to EARTH, she knew she had found her place, so when she was accepted, she was overjoyed.
Joy is enthusiastic about what she is learning at EARTH. She says, with much excitement, “I am starting to see how to cultivate things, and I can begin to see what we’re doing wrong in my village. No one is measuring the nutrients in the soil. They just plant. They put fertilizers but without knowing the soil. They might plant one crop when they should plant another. Before EARTH, I often felt my studies were not relevant. Now I can see what I will do with what I’m learning. Even a hard class like chemistry – now I can see how I will use that in my career and to help my community and family.”
It means everything to her and her family that she is able to study at a world class university. Even when she was in the middle of the application process and wasn’t sure she was submitting everything correctly, she persisted. Joy says being at EARTH feels like a miracle. “Now my younger siblings and cousins see it’s possible. They see it can be done. I want to show people that if we persist, we can do great things. We can’t stop when we get discouraged.”
Even though Joy has a good idea of the many challenges her region faces, she is optimistic for the future of agriculture in her country and her ability to learn all she can at EARTH to one day be part of the solution. “We have a good climate in my country. It is very green. But there is so much food insecurity. Food is very expensive. I love my people. I want to do all my best to be a better version of me so I can go back and impact my village and country. I feel like I can make a difference.”
We have no doubt you will do this, Joy!