How ‘KoraLink’ is helping young Rwandans turn small earnings into thriving businesses

For Jeannine Uwiringiyimana, a single mother of two in Nyagatare District, earning Rwf40,000 a month once meant making difficult choices about which household needs could wait. A veterinarian by training, Uwiringiyimana spent years working for another veterinarian in Nyagatare. She paid Rwf20,000 in rent, leaving little for food, school fees and other household expenses. At one point, her eldest son was sent home from school because she could not pay his fees on time. “I never thought of quitting that monthly salary, but then I heard about KoraLink, which opened up the opportunity of selling health-related products in my neighbourhood. That changed my life in a tangible way,” she said. The KoraLink programme is a collaborative partnership between the Mastercard Foundation, The Commons Project Foundation (TCP), Africa, Society for Family Health (SFH) Rwanda and the ICT Chamber. It is designed to harness the tech-savvy energy of young people and transform access to health products and services in their communities. ALSO READ: Rwanda’s youth are creating jobs – the next challenge is quality and formalisation The programme targets financially disadvantaged young people aged 18 to 35, particularly women and those in rural communities, creating opportunities for the youth who may otherwise struggle to find formal employment while bringing essential health products and digital services closer to communities. Uwiringiyimana, joined KoraLink in September 2025 while continuing her veterinary job, using WhatsApp status posts, door-to-door visits and word of mouth to build a customer base. By January 2026, she had gained enough confidence to resign and work full-time as a KoraLink agent. In her first full month, she earned about Rwf300,000, more than seven times her previous monthly salary. Then came another milestone. Uwiringiyimana had long wanted to open her own veterinary pharmacy. By March 2026, she had done so, using part of the Rwf800,000 she had saved through KoraLink. Today, she runs the pharmacy alongside her KoraLink activities, giving her multiple sources of income. “Through KoraLink, we get these highly needed products at a lower cost and then sell them. As agents, we earn a commission, but from that portion, I am now generating an income of about Rwf30,000 per week,” she said. She says the additional income has enabled her to pay her children's school fees and household expenses while saving about Rwf50,000 every month. ALSO READ: Govt targets 500,000 jobs for out-of-school, unemployed youth But Uwiringiyimana's story is only one example of how agents are using earnings from KoraLink to build businesses beyond the programme's original model. Dr Richard Gakuba, Executive Secretary of The Commons Project Foundation, Africa (TCP Africa), said the emergence of agents becoming entrepreneurs is one sign the programme is succeeding in achieving its goal. What we are witnessing today as the programme grows is that KoraLink agents are becoming entrepreneurs beyond being sales agents, he said. They are using the skills and support from the programme to diversify their income, create extensions of the work that earn them more and, in some cases, create jobs for fellow youth in their communities. Turning small earnings into businesses In Rwimiyaga Sector, Nyagatare District, Mutoni Divine joined KoraLink after spending time at home with her child and without capital to use the tailoring skills she already possessed. She began selling KoraLink products to neighbours and, after about two months, used her earnings to buy her first sewing machine for Rwf150,000. At first, she kept the machine at home while continuing to sell health products and telling customers that she also offered tailoring services. As demand grew, she rented space at a trading centre and combined the two businesses. Six months later, she had saved enough to buy a second sewing machine for Rwf135,000. She then trained another person to work with her. She has since expanded into selling women's clothing and is saving through two saving groups while working towards buying an electric sewing machine, expanding her atelier to train and employ more people, and eventually opening a separate shop alongside it to sell health products. “Before I joined KoraLink, I was a stay home mother. Working as a KoraLink Agent has enabled me to sort out my own problems, shop for myself and dress my child,” Mutoni said. Her experience illustrates a broader pattern emerging among agents: earnings from selling health products are increasingly being used as capital for other activities. In the Rwimiyaga centre, Ange Marie Ntirenganya has used her savings to build a cake-making business. Before joining KoraLink, she was living with her sister. She saved Rwf400,000 from her KoraLink earnings and used it to buy her own oven. Although the oven uses charcoal, it has allowed her to produce cakes for customers in Rwimiyaga and surrounding areas, whether it is for weddings, birthdays and other occasions. She says the business has grown to the point where she now saves about Rwf300,000 a month, in combined earnings from her baking and KoraLink, alongside contributions to the four savings groups she belongs to. “By the end of the month or early next month, I am moving to the roadside where I am setting up my shop. It is currently undergoing final touches,” she confidently says For Ntirenganya, KoraLink became a foundation for greater financial independence rather than an end in itself. On top of supporting other agents as a supervisor in her sector, she also trains other young people to make cakes and empowers them to be self-employed. ALSO READ: YouthConnekt Africa Summit returns to Kigali “I help other agents to sell as a way of encouraging them to be more involved,” she says. Two of her clients in the Rwimiyaga sector commended Ntirenganya’s work ethic, among other things, for supplying them on time. More than a sales opportunity Agent onboarding covers basic business practice, product knowledge of what they sell, including sanitary pads, condoms, water purifier (Sur’Eau), and how to use the KoraLink Marketplace, the e-commerce platform where they order stock and transact. They begin with an interest-free investment of Rwf360,000, disbursed as digital vouchers in installments as they build their businesses. The amount is gradually repaid, allowing the revolving sustainable fund to support another group of agents. The programme began in Musanze and Nyagatare in August 2025 with about 79 agents. It has since grown to 2,278 agents across 11 districts, with recruitment ongoing in three additional districts, and is expanding toward all 30 districts in Rwanda. By 2028, KoraLink aims to contribute to 41,122 direct and indirect jobs, including 11,762 agents. About 80 per cent of agents are expected to be women and 70 per cent from rural areas. Dr Richard Gakuba, said the programme was designed to address youth employment while also improving access to essential health products, using technology. “When we set out to design this programme with our partners, we wanted to address youth employment while also responding to the community challenge of last-mile delivery, particularly for essential health products,” Gakuba said. ALSO READ: Inside Rwanda's changing labour market The programme has also created spaces where agents can influence how it develops. These include district coordination meetings, study tours, a program youth advisory group, and quarterly meetings involving agent-elected supervisors. The platforms give agents an opportunity to raise day-to-day challenges, identify market opportunities, learn from peers and discuss the direction of the programme with partners and local leaders. Building beyond KoraLink For some agents, that support is helping them move from simply earning commissions to thinking about longer-term financial independence. In Nyagasambu Sector, Rwamagana District, Rosine Umuhoza, 30, joined KoraLink after a period of unemployment. A mother of one, she began selling products including sanitary pads and condoms, and says the income has enabled her to pay her child's school fees. “I was a mother who had no job and depended on asking for support on everything. But now I can pay my child's school fees because of KoraLink,” Umuhoza said. She hopes to increase her capital so she can order more products and expand her business. ALSO READ: AGUKA drives 128,000 jobs, Rwf34bn income as Rwanda eyes next youth enterprise growth phase In Rwimiyaga, Shakira Mwiza has taken a different route. The 25-year-old started by selling KoraLink products but used profits to buy a computer for Rwf180,000 and expand into providing digital services. The Rwimiyaga Sector administration gave her space to work from its offices, allowing her to avoid the cost of renting premises while establishing the business. Mwiza now uses the income to help pay her tuition at the University of Lay Adventists of Kigali, travelling to Kigali to study over weekends before returning to Rwimiyaga. Sam Gatunge, Executive Secretary of Rwimiyaga Sector, said the agents were helping improve service delivery in the community and support national priorities. “You are ensuring that people are drinking clean water, you’re helping us to combat teenage pregnancies and prevent STDs.,” he said. For Uwiringiyimana, that progression has taken her from a Rwf40,000 salary to owning a veterinary pharmacy and mentoring other agents. She now supervises 21 KoraLink agents in her sector, organises peer meetings and helps facilitate savings groups. As the world marks International Youth Day this month, the journeys of Uwiringiyimana, Mutoni, Ntirenganya, Umuhoza and Mwiza illustrate what is possible when young people have the tools, skills and support to shape their own livelihoods in the digital era and take part meaningfully in the economy. KoraLink's ambition stretches beyond individual growth. In 2026, the program plans to expand into new districts, bringing its model to more youth across Rwanda and facilitating last-mile delivery of a growing product portfolio. It also plans to organise agents into savings and investment groups, establish sector-level KoraLink hubs, and continue coaching and equipping agents with skills that widen their pathways into gig work across diverse sectors, where young people can earn.

News

How ‘KoraLink’ is helping young Rwandans turn small earnings into thriving businesses