North East entrepreneur invests in Rwandan Tea trade

Sir Ian Wood's charity The Wood Foundation is helping support Rwandan tea farmers.

Since 2009 The Wood Foundation has been helping Rwandan tea farmers and the charity is now being recognised as one of the leading tea philanthropists in the world.

TWF is having a positive impact on the communities after is bought 60% stakes in tea factories in Shagasha and Mulindi and implemented a business plan to hand over ownership to local smallholder tea farmers.

In November 2017 more than 4,000 small holders came together at the Shagasha tea factory, and another gathering took place on 30th January 2018 to celebrate the charity's work that is enabling sustainable change.

Sir Ian Wood told Northsound: "Right now we train about 1,500 farmers a year, but we are looking at another project that wouild take us into livestock but I'm not sure we are going to do it yet.

"We are carrying out the three largest tea planting operations in Africa but we are working with factories and working with Unilever and we are building two of the factories, and these are in relatively poor areas where they haven't farmed before.

"We would like a lot more people to be caring and to work in the communities and give a bit back and to help other people, and that is really all we are doing on the scale that we can."

The Wood Foundation has previously made a £10 million contribution towards a new multistorey car park at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.