Shyagari Bridge – Rwanda

In November 2022, SYSTRA brought together for the first time an international team of employees to build a suspended footbridge in the Muhanga district in the south of Rwanda.

In November 2022, a joint team of 10 SYSTRA* employees built a footbridge in the village of Mushishiro. This 80-metre-long metal structure links two slopes of a hill, in the heart of a forest and close to tea plantations, one of Rwanda’s main agricultural activities.

This was SYSTRA’s first project in Rwanda, with a team made up of employees from 4 different countries and from a wide range of fields and areas of expertise: systems engineering, infrastructure, digital engineering, and the environment.

Overlooking a river that regularly floods, the bridge is operational 7 days a week, giving more than 2,600 inhabitants access to the main services and shops in the area. Nearly a thousand schoolchildren can now go to school, while farmers have seen their income increase by around 30% thanks to easier access to local markets to sell their produce.

*This team was joined by a colleague from Michael Baker International