Vulnerable women from Musange Sector in Nyamagabe District are reaping big from saving and loan groups that have enabled them to establish profitable small businesses and graduate out of extreme poverty. Saving and Loan Groups approach is a micro credit model under which between 20 and 30 members meet in a self-managed group once a week to save and borrow money. The groups comprising 20 members each (of which only five are men) do not require to wait for a year to share savings as they share and borrow the savings any time after accumulating some savings. The members grow different crops including banana, pineapple, maize, beans, cassava, and fruits. They also rear poultry and goats, weaving and knitting, making mats and improved cook stoves among others. Women in savings groups have established small income generating projects. Athanasie Niyonsaba, a single mother of four is one of them. “Before joining the savings and loan group I used to survive with support from neighbors. I had no single piece of land and my children were suffering from Kwashiorkor,” she said. Kwashiorkor is a severe form of malnutrition. It’s most common in some developing regions where babies and children do not get enough protein or other essential nutrients in their diet. The main sign of kwashiorkor is excessive fluid in the body’s tissues, which causes swelling under the skin. When she joined the group five years ago, she started with saving Rwf50 per week. “Whenever I would get casual work, earn Rwf400 per day, I started by saving Rwf50. When I joined the savings and loan group, I borrowed Rwf2, 500 from it and together with other savings I leased a tillable land from which I harvested 100 Kilogrammes of beans to get Rwf25, 000. With this, I leased two more small pieces of land,’ she said. Niyonsaba said she continued leasing more pieces of tillable land using the savings from the association and so far she has managed to buy her own Rwf250,000 pieces of land. “I also managed to start a sorghum beer business. My savings in the association have now amounted to Rwf1,000 every day,” she said. Donathille Mukantaganzwa, another woman, said she started with saving Rwf150 in the group. “We have managed to afford paying Community based health insurance on time among other basic needs,” she said. The saving group’s members have been buying small livestock that are helping to generate more income. “I managed to buy a pig. This pig produces eight piglets which I sell and get Rwf80,000,” she said. Celestin Nkunzi, the Director of Investment and job promotion in Nyamagabe District has urged all residents to join savings groups as a way of embracing saving culture to boost economic development of their families and district in general. “With any financial capacity residents can join the associations and start saving. The money we often think as small, can enable on to buy a rabbit, a chicken, and other small livestock which can end up making huge profits and lift them out of poverty,” he said. Wilson Kabagamba, the project manager at African Evangelistic Enterprise which supported the establishment of the saving and loan groups in Rwanda said that in the three sectors in Nyamagabe district, at least 450 saving and loan groups comprising 9,000 members were set up. He said that the associations from Musange, Kaduha and Mugano Sectors were trained on running small income generating projects under Sustainable Economic Agriculture Development Project. “They can do productive farming and add value to the produce,” he said. Joining Ejo Heza Scheme Kabagamba said that the saving groups have also paved the way for saving in Ejo Heza scheme. Ejo Heza is a pension scheme intended to improve the welfare, especially, of workers in the informal sector once they retire as a result of old age, debilitating diseases or accidents resulting from occupational hazards. The Government of Rwanda through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning established Ejo Heza Long Term Savings Scheme (LTSS) under the Law N° 29/2017 of 29th June 2017. It was established on a voluntary basis, whereby the subscriber opens a savings account with authorized financial intermediaries (Banks or Mobile Network Operators). The scheme was established to solve the problem of the huge pension and social security coverage gap where less than six percent of the Rwandan workforce was covered by formal pension and other social security arrangements. Today, thanks to mobilization and saving associations in the communities, the scheme has started to bear fruits. The number of contributors significantly grew by 167.9 per cent to 1,423,377 in December 2021 from 531,344 in December 2020. Assets of the Ejo Heza Fund continued to grow in 2021. Total assets increased by 139 percent from Rwf10.1 billion in December 2020 to Rwf24.1 billion in December 2021 due to increase in contributions received. Total contributors increased by 168 percent from 531,344 to 1,423,377 leading to an increase in contributions from Rwf9.7 billion in December 2020 to Rwf23.2 Billion in December 2021 – a 138 percent increase. Contributions increased across different geographical locations of the country. Eastern Province had the largest increase in share of savers (133 per cent), followed by Northern Province (130 per cent), Kigali city (121 per cent), Western Province (109 per cent) and Southern Province (102 per cent).
