Posts Tagged ‘World Relief Rwanda’
Girls: Change Makers and World Shapers
“Girls are one of the most powerful forces for change in the world: When their rights are recognized, their needs are met and their voices are heard, they drive positive change in their families, their communities and the world.” – Kathy Calvin, United Nations Foundation President & CEO
If you empower a girl, you empower her whole community. We’ve seen this at World Relief, where girls around the world are finding opportunities to step into their God-given gifts. Often, among the most vulnerable populations globally, girls have a unique power to lift up their communities as they themselves rise.
In places of conflict, women are peacemakers and influencers. In times of need, women drive transformation and development in their homes, their neighborhoods and their nations. And when girls feel valued, celebrated and motivated, they grow up to be powerful change-making women.
Today, on International Day of the Girl Child, we’re sharing two stories of girls who are creating change in their communities. Sifa and Marady live thousands of miles apart, but they have something in common: they’re both part of World Relief Kid’s Clubs.
Through Kid’s Clubs, we partner with local churches, schools and community members to teach children how to develop healthy relationships with God, others and self. In their local clubs, Sifa and Marady are learning and leading others to grow physically, emotionally, socially, mentally and spiritually.
Sifa: Starting a Kid’s Savings Movement in Rwanda
Sifa is 11 years old, and her dream is to become rich. But she doesn’t want to be rich for herself. Sifa wants to use her money to serve orphans and vulnerable children. And she wants to help other kids do the same.
After seeing the positive impact joining a World Relief savings group had on her parents and family, Sifa decided that she and her friends should be learning about saving and finances, too. Sifa told her peers about the savings group and they decided to start their own.
The group is made up of 30 kids between the ages of six and 11. With their parents’ support and supervision of a Kid’s Club volunteer, each child contributes about 10 cents at weekly meetings.
Soon, the group had enough money to purchase two chickens for each child. The kids care for the chickens and sell the eggs at the market, continuing to increase the savings of the group. Together, Sifa and her peers decide on priorities to solve their problems, as well as those of the community — especially caring for the needs of their most vulnerable neighbors.
Because of Sifa’s determination and heart to help other children, she’s inspired a movement.
So far, more than five churches in her community have followed her lead and started savings groups in their Kid’s Clubs.
As for Sifa, she’s looking forward to earning more money and helping more kids. “Looking at how far I have come,” she said, “earning enough to buy a chicken which is producing eggs for selling to the market, my future is guaranteed.”
Marady: Leading Through Crisis in Cambodia
At 12 years old, Marady is a leader among her friends. When she started attending Kid’s Clubs, Marady was so enthusiastic about what she was learning that she began sharing lessons and activities with her classmates at school. Now, she’s become one of the club’s biggest advocates.
When COVID-19 hit, club meetings were sometimes cancelled due to safety concerns, but Marady remained committed. Once it was safe, Marady would gather her friends from Kid’s Club and review activities and lessons they had learned together.
“Marady has a helping heart,” a Kid’s Club volunteer said, “She helps prepare the space and materials when the club starts and ends. She also helps remind and call her club-mates to Kid’s Club every week.”
“I really enjoy coming to Kid’s Club,” Marady said. “I like to play with other kids and do some activities like washing our hands, cutting our nails and coloring together.”
Because of Marady, the friendship between the kids and the hygiene knowledge they learned remained intact in the midst of a challenging season.
We thank God for girls like Sifa and Marady! Through their compassion and perseverance, they are creating lasting change among their friends and neighbors. Whether helping kids maintain knowledge and friendship through a pandemic or inspiring financial responsibility as a means to care for one another, these girls are transforming the world around them one change at a time.
Sifa and Marady are just two of the 1.1 billion girls around the world. If we invest in and empower girls globally, what else might they accomplish?
Join us in celebrating the power and potential of girls around the world by giving today or joining The Path.
Emily Kankindi Iyakaremye joined World Relief in 2005 as a receptionist. Six months later, she was promoted to Assistant to the Country Director and served in this role for seven years. Her skills and experience in communications, planning and hospitality then lead her to a role in the Evaluation, Research and Development department where she served for four years. Today, Emily heads the Communications and Documentation unit at World Relief Rwanda, working as the Communication and Documentation Coordinator. She is married and has two daughters aged 11 and 13 year old. She has a Bachelor Degree in Marketing and is in the process of furthering her studies in the domain of counseling and human services as she believes it is her passion and gift from God.
Bopha So serves as a Child Development Facilitator at World Relief Cambodia, where she has worked for almost 21 years. She has a great heart for the most vulnerable, and is gifted at building good relationships within communities, especially with kids’ parents.
Kelly Hill serves as a Content Writer at World Relief. She previously served as Volunteer Services Manager at World Relief Triad in North Carolina before moving to Salt Lake City. With a background in International and Intercultural Communication, she is passionate about the power of story to connect people of diverse experiences.
The Secret Behind Her Smile
Never Again
April 7th marks the beginning of 100 days of commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. This is a special time to remember more than a million people that were murdered because of the way they were created. It is a time to grieve but also to unite and rebuild a new generation and a new Rwanda that has a vision of moving forward towards development. The Genocide against the Tutsi was a horrible tragedy no one wishes to see happen again, so we commit ourselves to never let it happen again in our country or elsewhere and say ‘Genocide never again’.
While it is often hard to look back on the tragic events in our past, I see only hope when I look around at the Rwanda of today. All around me I see people and communities that have been reborn and made new. And in my work at World Relief, I am happy to get to witness and share so many of these stories of hope. Stories of women like Tuyisenge Valerie, a 43-year-old wife and mother to three kids.
Valerie’s Story
I first met Valerie while visiting Nyamasheke Church Empowerment Zone. Her genuine and beautiful smile caught my attention. Even though I already knew her as one of our project beneficiaries and have heard a lot about how strong and influential she is in the community, I always wanted to know more about the person behind her smile and courage. I asked her if she could share her story and she said “yes” with her beautiful smile.
“My life story always changes people’s hearts so if you want to share it with the world I am happy with it, as long as it will help others and improve the way they envision their future. This is my calling and passion, to touch as many people’s lives as possible with my story,” she said.
Valerie is a survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, when her parents and all 12 of her siblings were murdered. During this horrific tragedy, she was also sexually assaulted. In the wake of these events, Valerie was left feeling helpless and lonely. She faced extreme trauma and was put under medication to ease her pain and tension. She always felt lonely, even though she was being taken care of by the government through the 1994 Genocide Survival Fund, which provides access to money to support her and takes care of her medical needs.
Despite her trauma, Valerie is friendly and loves supporting others in need. She used to provide counsel to and advocate for those who were hurting, especially other survivors. This prompted her to be elected as the head of an organization named ‘IBUKA’, which connects various groups who aid survivors of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in her village. This leadership also paved the way for her to join The National Women Council which is a group responsible for advocacy, capacity building and social mobilization through women empowerment projects, and which fights against domestic violence and advances women’s rights.
In August 1996, Valerie got married to Celestin Kitabonindege. A year later they were blessed with their firstborn and later had four other children together. Unfortunately, the second and fifth born died when they were still infants. After losing their last born in 2006, Celestin wanted to have more children, yet Valerie did not. Celestin became angry and abusive, and eventually, in 2016 he left her for another woman, with whom he had three more children.
Valerie thought that her life was over. She had depended so much on Celestin due to the fact that he had loved her after all she went through after the genocide. And so she became desperate again, for she was left with 3 kids and in a small house. Their life was not easy and she depended only on the money that the survival fund could provide for her.
The Tuzamurane Project
Valerie’s suffering continued until 2019, when World Relief, in partnership with Starbucks, started the Women’s Empowerment, or Tuzamurane project. The project aims to “empower women to thrive through safe relationships, healthy homes, clean drinking water and economic opportunity,” and provides different lessons to help women sustain themselves towards development.
Behavior change for transformation, in addition to hygiene and sanitation, women and child rights, and economic development lessons were among lessons provided.
“The behavior change lesson that pictured a tree among all, saved my life. I realized that I had false beliefs as roots that made my life continue to be miserable. I was focusing only on what had happened to me which made me not have hope for a better future. But the more we went through these lessons, the more my mindset changed. And I started thinking differently looking ahead for a better future,” said Valerie.
Through the Tuzamurane project, Valerie met other women who had been through similar circumstances as she had. She gained friends through social women’s gatherings and began to find the support she needed to heal and speak up for herself. She also joined a savings group, which helped her grow her finances. Eventually, she was able to build two houses, one for her family and another one for rent to earn income. In addition to that, she opened a clothing shop which she still runs today. Valerie says that her life has been completely transformed by the community and the programs she found through Tuzamurane.
“I got my life back ever since World Relief came into my life through the project Tuzamurane,” she said. “I became open and able to face my fears and problems.”
Hope & Healing
Today, Valerie has reached a point in her healing that she now helps other women who have suffered domestic violence and/or other tragedies that have made them suffer. She helps them overcome their pain, fight for their rights and rebuild their lives through economic and career development. She is so grateful for what she acquired which made her draw near to God and thanked Him for having brought World Relief into her area.
Celestin also decided to apologize to Valerie and she forgave him. They got back together last year and are joining hands in building their life together in harmony.
As we remember the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Valerie is ready to help others by giving them hope for a brighter future. As a leader in her sector and village, she will be reaching out to those who face trauma during this time of mourning and seek to uplift them.
When I asked her about the secret behind her smile she said “due to these trainings I received from World Relief, I became new, I learned as well that smiling with happiness is like food and medicine to my soul.” She went on by saying that “people fight and hate each other for nothing! If only they could be aware of how they were loved and created by the same God for a purpose they would unlock their blessings!” Her smile now is genuine and meaningful. It does not hide pain and sorrow anymore for she is healed.
A pioneer in the documentation space, Emily Kankindi is the communications and documentation unit coordinator at World Relief in Rwanda. She started with World Relief in 2005 and has been growing through different stages while pursuing a career in creative communications with a passion to tell the story of impact. Driven by a mission to serve the most vulnerable, Emily is best known for inspiring others to care and serve the needy by using all possible means of communication to promote and call forth positive ramifications of WR interventions in all aspects of life. Her educational background is marketing and travel operations.
Savings for Life – Empowering the Poor in Rwanda
Rwanda is a small country with one of the highest population densities in Africa (USAID, 2013). It is also one of the poorest countries, but it has made significant progress since the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi that killed nearly 800,000 people (USAID, 2013). Poverty has dropped from 56.7 percent in 2006 to 44.9 percent in 2011, a developmental trend worth celebrating (USAID, 2013). Still, Rwanda’s poorest are often excluded from formal financial institutions and basic financial services because of fees and geographic barriers. Less than half of the population is formally banked. Lack of access to savings makes these people more vulnerable to economic shocks and it prevents personal investment for future development.
Local churches in Rwanda are well-positioned to address poverty in their communities. They typically respond by providing food and money to the poor, a well-meaning effort that fails to address root causes of poverty. Often, these churches lack the skills and tools to be agents of transformational development, a holistic approach to poverty that involves
sustainable changes in attitudes and behaviors. World Relief is responding by empowering the local church to deliver basic financial services and education to Rwanda’s poorest through the Savings for Life™ program, which makes access to savings and loans possible for the most poor and vulnerable. World Relief trains church volunteers who, in turn, train savings and credit groups in the communities. Special emphasis is placed on savings mobilization methods, Biblical stewardship, financial integrity, overcoming poverty, effective asset use and group government and management.
The impact of Savings for Life™ extends beyond economic empowerment as Savings Group members discover that they already have the resources necessary to advance their lives and those of their children. The community becomes more resilient as members help each other set aside money for emergencies. When World Relief concludes its work, these self-sustaining groups continue to meet and holistically transform the lives of members. Groups provide an opportunity for people to work together for a common financial goal and serve as a safe place of social support. World Relief has been implementing Savings for Life in Rwanda since 2010. There are currently 682 groups and 14,535 members across four districts.
Courtney O’Connell is World Relief’s Senior Technical Advisor for the Savings for Life program. She will be speaking at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute of Sustainable Microenterprise Development Program in a class titled “Savings Groups Post-Project: Evolution, Sustainability, Enrichment” Nov. 18-22, 2013 in Arusha, Tanzania. The following interview was conducted on Oct. 28, 2013.
Courtney, what is your history with transformational development,
World Relief, and as Senior Technical Advisor for the Savings for Life program?
C: I joined World Relief in 2011 after having already lived in Africa for three years. My earliest work in Africa heightened my understanding of the need for transformational development to be truly holistic. I believe that just focusing on one area of life, physical, for example, ignores so many other areas of a person that need to be addressed: spiritual, social, emotional, financial. Joining World Relief’s Savings for Life team, then was a perfect fit for me as we try to address communities in a holistic way,
In which countries is this program currently being implemented?
C: We started our Savings for Life (SFL) program in Burundi in 2008, then expanded to Kenya and Rwanda in 2008 then to Malawi (2011), Congo (2012) and South Sudan (2013).
To date, do you know the total amount of Savings Groups and
members?
C: Currently we have 104,857 members across all 6 countries.
Why does Savings for Life and the Savings Group model work so
well? In other words, what about this model is different from other existing
financial services and institutions offered either by countries or other NGOs?
C: The essence of the SFL program is this: groups of 10-25 community members come together and save their own money, use that common pool to make loans to each other charging an agreed upon interest rate. Then, after about 9 months, the members get back all the money they saved plus their share of the interest, or profit, the group made. This money that they’ve accumulated, generally $75-140, is usually the most amount of money these community members have ever had in their hands. And, it’s all theirs! The empowerment they take from this method is remarkable. Members are able to put children in school, buy health insurance for the very first time, invest in a business, or make tangible improvements on their homes. It’s such a huge change in a relatively short time.
Our approach is different from most other NGOs who do savings programs. First, we strive to deliver a high quality, technically sound savings program. It improves upon the indigenous forms of savings that have been present in rural communities for generations and generations. Most importantly, however, World Relief is working in and through the local church. Our desire is to see the church own this program and, towards that end, have volunteers from the church that help to form and train new savings groups. Groups pray with each other and support each other in times of need. We also have a Bible Study the groups can do to supplement their savings activities. In all these ways we’re trying to address the spiritual and the financial lives of the members.
Can you share a recent story from the Savings for Life program in Rwanda?
C: In the Nayamasheke district, Savings for Life empowered the Tuzamurane Savings Group (below) with the ability to address other areas of need in their lives. The members identified that each one needed a mattress at their house, as some were still sleeping on dirt floors. So they took turns buying mattresses from their collective savings until everyone had one. They were so proud of what they did, they bought matching ‘uniforms’ so that the entire community would know that they were empowered and could do fantastic things!
Choosing Life in Rwanda
In October 2012, one of our Church Partners, Bethany Community Church in Washington State worked with World Relief and the local church in Rwanda to organize a community event. This event called “Choose Life” used songs, sketches, poems, dramas and soccer games to teach youth about HIV prevention.
One of the Rwandan youth attending shares his experience:
My name is Jean De Dieu, and I fellowship at a church in the Cyuve Sector, Musanze District. I thank God very much for my church leaders, who in partnership with World Relief, organized training for the youth on HIV/AIDS and encouraged us to go for a voluntary test to learn our status.
I was very scared when they told us about it since it was my first time to test, but especially because before I became saved, I was sexually active. For a long time now, I have been living in fear that I may be infected with HIV/AIDs. I had even planned that if I ever got tested only to find that I was infected, I would commit suicide. I was convinced there would be no hope for my future if I found out that I am positive with HIV/AIDS.
World Relief, together with my church, trained us on the book of “Choose Life” and I was very blessed to be trained to train others. There was an event organized by churches and World Relief in the fight against AIDS, where there was a competition in songs, poems, and plays for the youth. After, we went for a voluntary HIV/AIDS Test.
At first I was scared to go because of my past, but later on, I got encouraged by the lessons we were given on “accepting who you are, and know your health status” and therefore I went for the test. When the results came, I was very happy to see that I was HIV/AIDS Negative. I praised God for that and felt that my life was renewed. I went to my Pastor exclaiming, “I was very scared to go for a test because of my past. I have been living with a heavy secret that I would like to share with my church especially the youth; for I believe that my testimony on my past life can help many.”
My Pastor accepted to give me time on Sunday. I gave my testimony to encourage others to abstain and remain faithful. They prayed for me and I was released. I became free and took a decision once again, to abstain until I get married.
Many Thanks be to God, my Church and to World Relief. I don’t know where I would be.
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