COMBATTING EXTREME POVERTY

The community-based project, in Kigali, aimed to alleviate the primary causes of poverty affecting 70 women, and their families, through holistic health and education interventions. The project included developing income-generating activities; providing literacy and numeracy classes; increasing access to employment; and providing the women with education on women’s and children’s rights, sexual and gender-based violence and family law. Additional and separate training was provided to their husbands and partners on women’s rights and sexual and domestic violence.

By the end of the project, 56 of the women were employed or self-employed and had increased their average monthly income by 2,100% (from $3 to $63 per month). All of the women felt that their lives had improved, as had their relationships, with a notable reduction in gender-based violence. They could afford to eat healthily and put their children through school. 100% of the women were now using birth control and 94% had signed up for government health insurance. Several women had had difficulties in securing start-up capital for their businesses. The project was extended for six months and remedial funds from exchange rate gains redistributed in grants to the 65 women who had presented business plans to start new businesses or to improve existing businesses. Within the six months, 98% of the women had increased their income by 90%.

 Aspire Rwanda is a Rwandan NGO founded in 2009. It aims to support vulnerable women without employment. The project is supported by the British NGO Network for Africa, which, since 2007, has helped communities affected by war and genocide to rebuild themselves.