Edmonton community garden benefits Rwandan support group

"During the summer growing months, about half a hectare of land in Edmonton is all that separates Eloge Butera from his native Rwanda.

The patch of earth, located at the University of Alberta farm, was transformed this spring into the Green&Gold Community Garden, now bursting with market-ready produce.

For Butera, 25, who lost much of his family in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, it is proof that life goes on. "I was 11 years old and the genocide took my father, my grandmother ...nearly 100 people in my family," says Butera, who was at the garden recently during a break from his studies in international law at McGill University in Montreal.

The garden is "an exercise of creating life. That's what a garden is and that means a lot here and it means a lot to the people in Rwanda." "