<div>Do you believe in:
</div>
<div>⚖️ Justice for small businesses?
</div>
<div>❤️ Women in leadership?
</div>
<div>Locally rooted, African-made products?
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Then this is your moment.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>❗ <strong>Kweza Craft Brewery — Rwanda’s first and only craft brewery — will close within weeks without support.</strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>We are a women-led company building something rare: award-winning beer brewed from locally grown sorghum, supporting farmers, creating jobs, and proving African ingredients can produce world-class craft beer.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>And we were succeeding.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>From Growth to Shutdown — Overnight</strong>
</div>
<div>By early 2025, Kweza was thriving:
</div>
<ul>
<li>⭐ African Beer Cup Bronze Medal (Inzovu IPA)
</li>
<li>Served at Kigali’s top hotels (Convention Center, Marriott, Four Points)
</li>
<li>On shelves in supermarkets, duty-free, and expanding into national distribution
</li>
</ul>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>We were scaling fast. Then everything stopped.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>In August 2025, <strong>our landlord illegally seized our brewery without a court order</strong> — locking our doors, trapping our equipment, and freezing our business.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>We fought.
</div>
<div>We won. The court ruled the seizure illegal. The underlying claim was dismissed.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Yet the landlord continues litigation. We must keep defending ourselves — at enormous cost.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>Financial Jeopardy</strong>
</div>
<div>With no production since August 2025, we were forced to:
</div>
<ul>
<li>Lay off over half our team - mostly women
</li>
<li>Shut down our taproom
</li>
<li>Drain all our cash reserves for legal defense, relocation, and survival
</li>
</ul>
<div><strong>We are now out of money. </strong>We will close our operations within weeks without your support.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>Why Kweza Matters</strong>
</div>
<div>Kweza is more than a brewery. It is a vision.
</div>
<div>‍
</div>
<div><em>Women-Led</em>
</div>
<ul>
<li>In an overwhelmingly male dominated, we are proudly diverse.
</li>
</ul>
<div>Locally Sourced
</div>
<ul>
<li>We buy sorghum from Rwandan farmers and support traditional malting practices.
</li>
</ul>
<div>Rwanda’s First Craft Brewery
</div>
<ul>
<li>We built Rwanda’s craft beer industry from scratch.
</li>
</ul>
<div>Culturally Rooted &amp; Globally Competitive:
</div>
<ul>
<li>Our beers are African in identity, award-winning, and world-class in quality.
</li>
</ul>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>We Are So Close to Coming Back</strong>
</div>
<ul>
<li>We have a new location
</li>
<li>Moved our equipment
</li>
<li>Prepared to restart production
</li>
</ul>
<div>We just need to survive the final stretch to get back to production.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>Would You Give $5 to Help Us Reopen?</strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Would you give $5 for:
</div>
<div>⚖️ Justice and Small Business survival?
</div>
<div>❤️ Keeping a women owned and operated brewery running?
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Every dollar matters right now.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>We need $20,000 to survive the month. </strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Every additional dollar helps bring back staff, brews another batch of beer, and gets us back on our feet.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>How Your Support Helps</strong>
</div>
<div>Your contribution goes directly to:
</div>
<ul>
<li>⚖️ Legal defense
</li>
<li>Reinstallation, and recommissioning
</li>
<li>Raw materials
</li>
<li>⚙️ Utilities and compliance
</li>
<li>‍ Rehiring our team
</li>
</ul>
<div>Our goal is to get back to making beer.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div><strong>Why This Matters Now</strong>
</div>
<div><strong>Without immediate support, Kweza will permanently close.</strong>
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>If you believe in what we’ve built, if you believe in small businesses fighting to survive, please stand with us. Donate and share.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>If you're a visionary partner looking to help us scale and shape the future of Kweza, please get in touch.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Together, we can bring Kweza’s vision back to beer glasses, to livelihoods, to life.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Thank you for standing with us.
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>Cheers! Kubuzima Bwacu!
</div>
<div>— The Kweza Team
</div>
<div><br />
</div>
<div>NOTE: Location says San Francisco, as GoFundMe locates the fundraiser where the bank address is. This is our Company US bank account location, but our operations are located in Rwanda. 
</div>

Kathryn Santos

Bryan Doran

Walter Brosius

Mark Fischer

Isaac Bizumuremyi

Dr.  Justin Kabera

Tim Vogel

Julia Karimi

Mwai Karimi

Timothy Lee

Doug Tuttle

Amy Kelly O Dowd

Justin Moore

Daniel Lipke

Deirdre Phaedra Henley

Carol Mcmillan

Jordan Hannagan

Janice I Spence

Anonymous

Kaggia Scott

Kweza Craft Brewery, a Women-Led Brewery Fighting To Survive

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