The truism holds that if you catch a fish for someone, you'll feed them for a day — but if you teach them to fish, you'll feed them for a lifetime. A priest visiting the United States from Rwanda hopes the adage will hold true, thanks to the help of friends in the Little Compton, Tiverton, Westport and Newport areas.

Father Emmanuel Rutangusa came to the States six years ago to further his education, and was charged with the Catholic University of Rwanda with coming up with a plan to address food insecurity and malnutrition in his homeland. One of the most densely populated countries on Earth, Rwanda has little farmable land and few resources, and those living in more rural areas have little means to support themselves.

"The goal was to find a sustainable project that could be taught not only to students, but to the community," Father Rutangusa said Friday. "We want this project to be owned by the community too."

While studying at Boston College, he was invited to stay at St. Madeline Sophia Church in Tiverton, and its sister parish, St. Catherine of Siena in Little Compton.

There, he became friends with parishioners, and several of them, mostly retired educators, saw promise in his plan. Since then, they have worked to help Father Emmanuel network with aquaponics educators at Salve Regina University, Harrisburg University and others within the private sector, including an American ex-pat who moved to Rwanda to start a commercial fish farming operation.

"We did some research and the basic problem the university faces in terms of serving its community was malnutrition," said retired special education teacher Ronald St. Martin of Little Compton. The promise of Father Rutangusa's assignment, he said, comes down to the value of service learning — the old fish adage, as it were.

"It's about education as a way of service. It's an approach that sees education as a way to make positive change in the world."

The result of their research over the past several years is a plan to build a small, closed loop fish and vegetable farming operation that can be built with minimal funding and locally available materials, and easily taught to those who need it. The closed loop system relies on large fish tanks as a growing medium for vegetables, incorporating tilapia fish as both an end product and a source for the nutrients the vegetables need. It needs much less water than traditional aquaponics operations.

To help toward the end goal, area residents and Father Rutangusa formed the Rwandan Aquaponics Network, partnered with Salve Regina University professor Jameson Chace for technical expertise, and started a website, www.helprwanda.org.

The challenge now is to fund the project. Father Rutangusa, who is now working toward his PhD in education from Rivier University in Nashua, N.H.,  plans to return home to Rwanda over the next year and help get the system off the ground. Of the estimated $75,000 cost to get the pilot program started, about $12,000 has been raised to date, much of it by parishioners at area churches.

"We're constantly refining the system and trying to get publicity," St. Martin said.

"Most of the donations so far have been small from individual donors; $100, $200 there. We are hoping we can raise more of the funds that are needed."

Note: For more information on the project, see www.helprwanda.org.