Princess Lalla Asmaa, President of the Lalla Asmaa Foundation, visited on Tuesday in Kigali the Mike Stenbock Gemura Kitchen, the first central kitchen in Rwanda for hospitalized patients, established with the support of the Mohammed VI Foundation for Sustainable Development.
Designed on an industrial scale, the kitchen helps the Rwandan association Solid’Africa provide patients most in need with meals tailored to their recovery, according to a press release by the Lalla Asmaa Foundation.
During the visit, Isabelle Kamariza, founder of Solid’Africa, briefed Princess Lalla Asmaa on the initiative, which addresses the difficulties faced by hospitalized patients in Rwanda, where families are responsible for providing meals, and the most disadvantaged often go without.
The initiative began in 2010 when a group of friends started cooking at home for patients at Kigali University Hospital.
The kitchen now operates on an industrial scale and can prepare up to 15,000 meals daily, with a team of cooks preparing eight diets adapted to each patient’s health status.
The meals are delivered daily to public hospitals, where teams serve them to patients. They are free for patients unable to pay and available for a fee to others, though all meals are of equal quality.
In 2025, 3.2 million meals were served to 130,000 patients and their companions in six public hospitals, with the objective of reaching 47 public hospitals across the country.
The Mohammed VI Foundation for Sustainable Development supported the construction of the kitchen alongside the Imbuto Foundation, with which it has maintained ties since 2016.
The project follows a “farm-to-table” approach, with Solid’Africa growing most of the produce used in its kitchen and sourcing the rest from cooperatives of small-scale farmers, mostly women, whom it trains and guarantees a stable market. Kitchen waste is returned to the farms as fertilizer.
MWN with MAP
