Through a partnership with a Rwandan NGO I have the unbelievable blessing to stay involved in handicrafts and with some of the women I was working with. I will be hosting some fundraising events and jewelry sales to support these efforts. To learn more please email me at kat.watson7@gmail.com or check back on my blog.

I will be starting my new job on August 1st, and please join me in praying that I never lose the ache in my heart to do more for Rwanda and that I will always cherish the memories and remember the lessons learned.

I don’t think that anybody put it better than Winnie, I am so incredibly lucky to have had the relationships and the experiences that made saying goodbye so hard. I wouldn’t trade it for anything!!

MURAKOZE CHANI (THANK YOU VERY MUCH)

Business Life After Death in Rwanda

Business Council for PeaceLanguida Nyirababeruka opened her funeral home in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. She recently visited a casket maker in Pennsylvania.

In a previous post, I wrote about the Business Council for Peace, a nonprofit network of professionals who provide pro bono business services to mostly female entrepreneurs in countries affected by conflict, including Rwanda. Last month, three Rwandan owners, graduates of the three-year BPeace program, visited the United States during a trip that paired them with American businesses in their industries. The participants included Languida Nyirababeruka, who foundedPompe Funebre Twifatanye, a funeral home, after the 1994 genocide.

Ms. Nyirababeruka, a former teacher who lost her job for political reasons, ran a tailoring business before 1994. The genocide claimed her husband and several family members, as well as her home and business. When it was over, she had to locate her three children, now in their 20s. “After the genocide, I started from scratch,” she said, speaking through an interpreter. A United Nations contact helped Ms. Nyirababeruka get a job as a cook, and she began to rebuild her life in Kigali.

The idea of opening a funeral home took shape after Ms. Nyirababeruka spent an exhausting day helping a friend plan a funeral. At the time, there was no one business that provided all funeral-related items and services, like coffins, transportation and flowers. Ms. Nyirababeruka said her friend was forced to “run around, buying things here and there.”

When Ms. Nyirababeruka opened Pompe Funebre Twifatanye in 2003, her friends and neighbors were uncomfortable with the concept of a business that profited from death. Now, many have become her customers, and she has two competitors. “She’s changing their culture,” said Craig Baker, a BPeace mentor who works at Brady Funeral Home in Danville, Pa., which was the host of Ms. Nyirababeruka for part of her stay. Mr. Baker met Ms. Nyirababeruka two years ago when he traveled to Rwanda to share his expertise.

Today, Ms. Nyirababeruka employs 10 people, including a recently hired carpenter who makes the coffins that she previously outsourced. Her business, which supports her family, had 2009 revenue of $26,435. Though she said that owning a business places her in Rwanda’s growing middle class, Ms. Nyirababeruka said her company must become more profitable.

She looked forward to learning from her counterparts in the United States. After leaving Pennsylvania, Ms. Nyirababeruka visited Cobble Hill Chapels in Brooklyn. Brady Funeral Home and Cobble Hill Chapels shared best practices and arranged field trips to the businesses that service the industry, including florists, cemeteries, headstone makers and a morgue.

During a meeting with the staff at Cobble Hill, Ms. Nyirababeruka admitted she often reduces her prices out of sympathy for grieving families and then regrets it. Although fixed prices are virtually unknown in Rwanda, Ms. Nyirababeruka vowed to establish them for her services and to make no exceptions. She was intrigued to learn that many American funeral homes offer interest-bearing accounts that make it easier for families to save for future funeral costs. Back in Rwanda, she plans to educate people to prepare for funeral expenses and to increase her chances of collecting them.

At Cobble Hill, Ms. Nyirababeruka also learned about potential add-on products and services that could boost her profits, like rosary beads and casket engraving. While some practices (like embalming) would be too costly for her to implement now, she learned how to create printed extras, like prayer cards, using a computer. She left Cobble Hill with shopping bag full of samples, including thank-you notes and a guest book.

Ms. Nyirababeruka hopes one day to pass her business on to her children. She is thinking about sending her son to a funeral services program that Mr. Baker attended in Pennsylvania and that they visited during her trip. Most of all, she said, she hoped her children will struggle less than she had.

(photo used with permission)

This is Valentina…

She is a gifted paper bead roller, a mother, and a daughter of Christ. Until recently, she felt that she had no hope and no option other than prostitution to earn money to feed her children. Today, she told me she has hope because of the trainings she has received in bead rolling. During prayer requests today, hers was that her children would have the chance to live a normal life, to be well fed, and to be able to go to school.

Sadly, her story is not unique. There is no way to know the number of prostitutes in Rwanda but it is estimated at over 6,500 with around 70% in Kigali. Many women know of no other option to feed their children and most wouldn’t even call themselves prostitutes, only “mothers searching for food”. The Rwandan genocide left a certain demographic of women uneducated, emotionally scarred, and untrained. I have even been told that there is an alarming number of Rwandan university women who have turned to prostitution.

Although sad (and difficult for many of us to fully understand) there is hope. I have partnered with a brand new cooperative with the hope of providing a Christ-centered, holistic business training program designed with their healing and development in mind. These vulnerable women are being trained in vocational and technical skills, taught about health care options for themselves and for their children, and educated in regards to their rights as women, mothers, and citizens. They will learn productive and sustainable skills and will increase their capacity to change their own lives and the lives of the people in their communities. The overall hope is to eradicate prostitution by removing it as the women’s only means of income and by educating women in their rights and social responsibilities, organizing them into cooperatives and encouraging them to become active members of their communities.

Of the current 60+ women:

• the average age is 28 years old
• Only 36% of them have completed primary education
• 30% are totally illiterate
• More than half have an STD and many are HIV+
• 80% lost family in the genocide and all still suffer the consequences
• 90% are single mothers
• Over half are unable to provide more than one meal per day for their families

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.” Charles R. Swindoll

No one has shown this to me more profoundly than the women that I work with…. They choose (despite having nothing worldly in their favor) hard work, perserverence, and JOY. No matter our circumstances, no matter if they are in our control or not, not matter if we like them or not, the most important part of the circumstance you are in is in your attitude towards it. I love this quote because I have no way of knowing what kinds of things the day will bring (especially in Rwanda) but I can choose my attitude towards how I will face my day. I choose to take on the day with Joy, Integrity, Love, Gratitude, and an open mind to what God is teaching me. And I pray for the strength to do it!!

…AND

Libya is not ‘another Rwanda’

The disciplined Tutsi rebel force led by Paul Kagame (left) in 1994 in Rwanda differs greatly from the ragtag opposition in Libya today. (Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images)

By Stephen KinzerApril 1, 2011



SHE WILL is a micro-finance initiative launched by The Global Enrichment Foundation in 2011.

The world’s largest refugee complex is known as Dadaab. In north eastern Kenya, a 50 sq km space metered out at the start of the Somali conflict in 1991 for just 90,000 refugees is now home to roughly 300,000 people. UNHCR officials say in some cases up to 30 people are living on plots designed for a family of five. But the agency can do little to ease the overcrowding. It has no more land to allocate. Newcomers – as many as 500 per day – see Dadaab as a refuge from the fighting, famine and drought that has killed over a million Somalis. But life here is anything but easy. Access to food and clean drinking water is a struggle. Firewood is hard to find. Malaria is rampant.

Women and children are the most vulnerable. Violence against women is increasing – reports of women being raped in the camps are shockingly common. Severe poverty affects nearly everyone.

What is microfinance?

Microfinance is a type of community and economic development that provides individuals with small loans to start or grow small businesses, enabling them to become economically self-sufficient and provide for their families. With little or no income, refugees in Dadaab are seldom able to borrow money from formal financial institutions, like banks, to set up their own small businesses. Microfinance institutions provide loans of little as $25 giving individuals the opportunity to set up their own small business.

• Between 95-98% of microfinance loans around the world are repaid!

Why Women?

Somali women have a much higher unemployment rate than men. In the Dadaab refugee camps there are many families who have been separated and the women are suddenly responsible for the financial well-being of their children. There are also a large number of war widows, many of them desperate to make ends meet. Families have lived for decades in Dadaab on international assistance but now Dadaab is being recognized by the international community as not just a temporary home for the refugees, but a place where families are going to stay. Opportunities for women to create their own financial independence will create a better future for themselves and their children.

Women have been shown to spend more of their income on their households; therefore, when women are helped to increase their incomes, the welfare of the whole family is improved. Their income benefits their children, particularly in education, diet, health care, and clothing.

Women’s equal access to financial resources is a human rights issue.

By putting financial resources in the hands of women, microfinance helps promote gender equality. Women’s status, both in their homes and in their communities, is elevated when they are responsible for managing loans and savings. The ability to generate and control their own income empowers poor women, giving them much needed self-confidence. Enhancing their financial security contributes to women’s ability and willingness to challenge the social injustices that they face.