Violet Busingye has always longed to be a pillar of empowerment of vulnerable women, to enable them become financially independent. Her vision is a world where underprivileged women start up their own business and culminate unemployment. In 2018, her dream took shape. She was financially ready to offer business support to vulnerable women through coaching, for instance; skills in communication, marketing and sales, accounting, time management, creativity, strategy, and customer relations, among others. It is through her resilience that the NGO known as “Inspire Dreams and Start-ups” was born, where a number of women have come up with their own businesses in baking, tailoring, ICT and so forth. Busingye says that the organisation focuses on promoting vulnerable women and teenage mothers to get them out of poverty and offer them a tool for economic independence. Making a difference Laetitia Uwimpuhwe is one of the teenage mothers who have gained from this initiative. Having dropped out of school in 2016, to seek for means of searching for money, she secured a job in a local bar. Violet Busingye, the founder of Inspire Dreams and Start-ups, Rwanda. In 2019, while working as a waitress, she was enticed by one of the usual clients of the bar to leave the job for ‘greener pastures’. He promised her money for capital and she didn’t doubt it. Unfortunately, the man had other plans. He asked her to find him at a hotel for the promised capital. She did not suspect bad intentions as he was always kind to her and concerned about her situation, little did she know what he was about to do. Uwimpuhwe accepted to meet the man at the hotel, where she was called to a room. In a wretched turn of events, she was raped and her screams were ignored. No one came to her rescue. She got pregnant and when she told the man, he told her that she was ‘free to go to the authorities and file a case against him’. The 20-year-old, humiliated, pregnant and alone, wiped her tears and sought ways to gain skills to sustain a living and support her little one. So she took on small jobs. Luck came knocking when she was selected for “Inzozi Project” under “Inspire Dreams and Start-ups.” Her dream is to start a bakery as she believes it doesn’t require a lot of money and one can juggle other trades too. “There are two programmes; Enterprise Africa, which centres more on already existing businesses, looks at the needs of the women to develop the businesses even further, and also connects them to potential investors and creates a great impact on the community, generating employment opportunities for others,” Busingye explains. And then “Inzozi”, aimed at empowering house workers, vulnerable women, and teenage mothers, as she believes they need motivation to have their own dreams, and better lives. Busingye notes that “Inzozi” women are between 16 to 32 years of age. They are usually taken through a programme that enables them to have a vision for their lives. All the equipment and materials they use are free of charge. Building the future Having graduated from senior six in 2015, Fabiola Ingabire was connected to a certain home to work as a babysitter, however, on hearing about the possibility to be her own boss, she decided to go for the training. She dreams of becoming a fashion designer, and is learning tailoring, plus other additional skills. Busingye points out that these women are also provided with financial literacy; they are taught to use the resources around them, and finance their businesses, and are followed up to know how their businesses are doing, the challenges they are facing and how they can overcome them. She adds that the women are given opportunities to come up with business ideas, supported in writing business proposals, research, and also put up mechanisms to help them to save. After the programme, they are connected to clients.
