Kwizera

 Kwizera is a Kinyarwanda word and means hope, believe, self-confidence. Exactly that we want to win with the project. Our mission We want to give people, who are dependent on the help of others, the possibility to care for their needs without being dependent from others. We want to give them hope and a better future and those they can manage on their own to raise their living standard. We also want to enhance the self-confidence especially of the women, when they recognize that they are able to achieve something good in their lives. We want to reach many people and have a share in reducing poverty in Rwanda. As the story on the first page tells: We cannot help everybody and we cannot stop poverty completely, but for the ones we can reach with our project, it will be a very big difference. And for that all the efforts are worth it.

What do we do?

The focus of our project is the allocation of microcredit especially to the poor women without job and without access to money many are forced to remain poor and are dependent on the help of others. With a small credit, they will get the chance to build up a small existence and care for themselves and their families. We are working as an NGO and we don’t get any benefit out of the project. The women pay a small interest but the whole amount will be saved for them and paid back to them to 100% if they either plan to invest in something or if they want to be independent as a group and don’t need to take another credit.

OUR TARGET

Our target is to give them the seed money and the possibility of taking credits to built up a small business and after some years they should be able to stand on their own feet. A very important part of the project is to train the women with basic knowledge of finance, business planning and accounting. Also we included the following actions to help people to help themselves and built up an existence, free of charges. – Giving them health insurance with their family members – education in hygienic, health and nutrition topics – Giving them domestic animals like pigs, goats, etc… – Offering therapy services for the Genocide survivals (counselling). We have cooperation and work together with two non government organizations “RVCP” (Rwanda Village Concept Project), Which is a voluntary organization run by students and LCCM( let children come to me) which is helping the widows and their children impacted from 1994 Genocide of Tutsi.

Aims:

• To reduce poverty
• To help people to generate income to care for themselves
• To promote a human-rights based development approach
• To empower citizens to effectively manage natural resources of their environment by establishing effective income generating activities
• To increase the self-confidence and give hope to the people

Who is in the focus of our project?

• People who cannot afford enough meals or cannot afford good nutrition
• People who cannot afford adequate health care
• People who cannot afford good education for their children
• People who cannot afford enough clothes or other important utensils
• People who are dependent on the help of others

The positive effects of microcredit are:

• Microcredit give people, who never had access to financial markets and who live under poverty line, the chance to start a small business and build up a small existence and break free out of poverty themselves
• Microcredit help people to help themselves and can generate long-term improvements in the life of the people
• The income of the people who take a credit increases and therefore the educational standard and the health standard increases
• The people have the chance to a self-determined life
• The children of the people who take a credit can more frequently visit schools regularly
• Women who take microcredit are more self-confident and more independent, empowerment of women
• The financial effort is smaller than in other fields of development aid and the effects are more sustainable