Supporting genocide widows

Therese Uzamukunda is a 58-year-old genocide widow who participated in the 18-month project aiming to improve her livelihood, psychological resilience and food security.

Therese attended the entrepreneurship training provided by the project. The small business that she set up is to buy bananas from different communities and transform the product into juice. Therese started accessing capital to set up the business from her savings group since she was very afraid of accessing loans from the bank. After overcoming her fear, Therese accessed two loans from Urwego Bank (she borrowed $185) first and $275 thereafter). Therese managed to pay back both loans without any defaults.

She commented:

“I have met many other survivors in the community, since we started coming together for training. We have learnt a lot and we have managed to meet others and share life experiences. I have become an entrepreneur in my community where my business is operating well and is enabling me to generate money for my agricultural activities. I have managed to use the profit from my business to cultivate eggplants and onions, which are now giving me some additional money. Through the project, I have received a solar light to help me with lighting for my house during the night. I used to spend a lot of money to buy lighting for the house, but I have now managed to use that money to contribute towards the savings group. Another achievement is that I bought three goats to help me get fertilizer and to increase crop production. One goat had kids a few weeks after buying it and I sold them to generate some additional money for buying family insurance and school materials for my children.”

Therese is truly thankful for the support and opportunities made possible by the project.