Women Empowerment

FVA strengthens household resilience by rebuilding the assets of women living in poverty and promoting positive relationships and use of power between men and women. In Musanze, Nyanza and Nyaruguru through “promoting opportunities for women’s empowerment and rights” (POWER) Project which we implemented in partnership with Action Aid International Rwanda, we have worked with more than 15000 where we supported 50 women smallholder farmer cooperatives in Musanze, 40 in Nyanza and 20 in Nyaruguru to improve agricultural production through various trainings. We have facilitated in their formation, registration and monitoring for 5 years.
• We provided our beneficiaries with 155 cows that have helped to improve the livelihoods of the beneficiaries.
• We provided our beneficiaries with modern agricultural seeds that boost food security and nutrition.
• We provided small livestock which will serve as source of income and organic manure
• We provided our beneficiaries with more than 150 water tanks to reduce the time they were spending on water collection so that it is allocated on income generating activities.
• We constructed four selling points (2 in Nyanza district, one in Nyaruguru and one Musanze) to facilitate women to easily access market for their products.
• We trained facilitators on sustainable agriculture to promote increased food productivity. Furthermore, we supported the planting of 10,000 leguminous plants that are used as food for the cows. Lastly, we trained our beneficiaries on financial management and linked them to microfinance institutions to facilitate the acquisition of loans that they use to start small income generating businesses.
Furthermore, through Creating of off-farm enterprises (CORE) FVA in partnership with World Vision by the financial support from Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) has implemented CORE project in Nyamasheke district that aimed at increasing of income from off farm for women and youth through formation of saving groups and cooperatives. FVA implemented the project for six years in all 15 sectors of Nyamasheke district. FVA formed more than 900 women and youth voluntary saving and lending groups (VSLGS) in Nyamasheke district, we trained them on entrepreneurship and linked them to Microfinance especially RIM Ltd and Sacco to be able to access loan to start small income generating activities. After working with those VSLGs for four years, we encouraged them to form cooperatives and register them to be able to increase their activities and consequently income. Through the partnership with Rwanda cooperative Agency, we trained sector and district officers in charge of cooperatives in order to equip them with the skills on online cooperative registration. After the training of these officers, we started the mobilization of saving groups to form cooperatives, which we achieved, and FVA managed to facilitate the formation of 103 cooperatives in Nyamasheke, which are working in different areas including production of juice from sugar cane, tailoring, shoe manufacturing, honey processing and many others. We supported these cooperatives with equipment like :
• Tailoring machines
• Sugar cane extraction machines
• Printers and computers for youth cooperatives in ICT.
Again, in livelihood and economic empowerment, under NELSAP Transmission programme Rwanda-Burundi regional interconnection project-Livelihood Restoration program that we implemented in partnership with EDCL and KFW in Ruhango, Nyanza, Huye and Gisagara districts , FVA was able to facilitate the project affected people (PAP) to restore their livelihood through different interventions :
• We built the capacity of the project beneficiaries on entrepreneurship, climate resilient sustainable agriculture (CRSA) in order to contribute to the environment protection through practicing modern farming techniques.
• Provided to the project beneficiaries Cabbage, carrot, onions and green vegetable seeds.
• We also provided small livestock like goats, pigs and hens.
• We constructed nine water kiosks to facilitate the community to have access to water sources easily.
FVA in partnership with, International Alert, CDC, NORAD and SIDA has been implementing Mupaka Shamba Letu in Rusizi district borders (Rusizi I Rusizi II and Bugarama borders) to facilitate cross border traders do their business peacefully. The project facilitated in the formation of saving groups and cooperatives for cross- border traders. We formed 24 AVECs (Association de Villageois D’épargne et de Crédit(VSLGs) who were trained on financial literacy, linked to micro-financial institutions and we facilitated them to start small income generating activities. We also formed 10 women and youth cooperatives, we facilitated them to be registered by RCA and also provided them with startup kits according to their area of operation.
Lastly but not least, through Improved livelihood and environment protection for refugees in Gihembe. In partnership with ADRA and UNHCR, FVA implemented a project in Gihembe refugee camp that facilitated the refugees to have less energy consuming which not only saved the environment but also saved the money that they were spending on cooking energy. FVA provided peats, training and monitoring on the usage of burning as alternative cooking energy. The peats were provided to the refugees, schools in the camp and to the host community. FVA built the capacity of refugees/community on the use of burning peat as a new source of cooking energy and provided refugees and the host community with burning peats