Valentine Mukashema

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Valentine Mukashema by Vision Finance Company s.a. (VFC), a partner of World Vision International in Rwanda. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 8 months of this loan, Vision Finance Company s.a. (VFC), a partner of World Vision International will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Dear Kiva Lender,

Thank you for supporting entrepreneurs in Rwanda! I am happy to be writing to you as the Kiva Fellow in Rwanda working with Vision Finance Company (VFC). VFC has been one of Kiva’s field partners for ten months. This means that in June of last year, VFC began posting some of its clients on the Kiva website to raise funds for their loans. To date you have funded loans for 168 VFC clients, lending a total of $137,850.

Many people know of Rwanda only in the context of the Genocide that took place here in 1994. While that violent history remains part of the lives of everyone here, there is much more to this country than a tragic past. The energy permeating the country is towards growth and development. The microfinance industry in Rwanda is an important part of the growth that is taking place here. Vision Finance Company targets the productive poor throughout the country and has social metrics in place to gauge their effectiveness at improving household standards of living. It has found ways to access rural areas that are overlooked by other MFIs in the country and as a result gets capital to rural entrepreneurs, particularly in the agriculture sector, that have no other access to capital. Ninety percent of Rwanda’s labor force participates in agriculture, so VFC’s ability to target and improve the output of the country’s farmers is imperative to the country’s continued growth.

The country’s growth is occurring alongside its attempts to cope with the Genocide of fifteen years ago. There is a juxtaposition of those who committed the Genocide and those who survived. Prisoners do manual labor all over the country, working on plots of land, building brick walls along roads, and doing various other public works projects in plain sight. They pass through lives as they stand packed in the backs of trucks and are taken between their projects and their cells. One of the most complex issues this country faces is how to go on, develop, heal, when the painful past remains present. After a horrific divisiveness, how is everyone supposed to come together again?

While I don’t have an answer to that question, I do feel like microfinance plays a role. After visiting a few of VFC’s clients, I understood that many were Genocide survivors. It took me a little bit longer to realize that they also serve the perpetrators of the Genocide. As is now the law in the country, VFC does not discriminate. Serving all qualified individuals in an equal opportunity way makes sense in theory but is quite complex in practice. Even the credit officers working with the clients often have their own stories of survival.

I recently met with a client whom I knew was a perpetrator of the Genocide. He was free because he had confessed his crimes, his confession was accepted as true by the gacaca court (a court system that has been established to process trials for accused genocidaires on a local level), and he had completed the assigned community service. Now he was back at home with his family, dressed in civilian clothing, and working in his businesses.

My immediate reaction upon meeting him was that he had such a kind face. I noticed his warm smile and friendly greetings to the staff. Then he shook my hand and it was just like so many greetings I’ve exchanged here before. It was a jarring interview for how totally routine it was. He was not a man you would pin as a killer. This client was the closest I’ve come to the reality that ultimately all perpetrators of the Genocide will be free. He put a face to the abstract impossibility that this country is facing as it frees prisoners from overcrowded prisons and reintroduces them to society.

Microfinance in Rwanda serves an important role as the country attempts to rebuild. Survivors and perpetrators alike are in need of the means to begin again to prevent against history repeating. As lenders to this country, you all are serving a role in its better future. VFC is attempting to collect updates for you on as many of its clients as possible, but in the meantime I hope this email helps you to understand the impact your loan is having. From Kiva, Vision Finance Company, and all of its clients, thank you for lending!

To see all of Vision Finance Company’s currently fundraising loans, please click here: http://partners.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=117&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_te=mj. To join the lending team created to support Rwandese clients, click here: http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeamMembers/?team_id=5273.

Sincerely,

Julie Ross

Greetings Kiva lenders!

My name is Laura Buhler and I am the current Kiva Fellow on location at Vision Finance Company (VFC) in Kigali, Rwanda. I am writing you to thank you for your contribution to the development of Rwanda through your loans to Rwandan entrepreneurs.

VFC has been a Kiva Partner in Rwanda for 14 months and serviced 259 Kiva borrowers. To date, you have financed loans for these clients totalling $204,525. VFC places a heavy emphasis on empowering women by making 70% of the loans to women. The institution also focuses heavily on rural and agricultural clients to give these communities a leg up in an ever industrializing country.

On July 4, 2009, Rwanda celebrated its fifteenth anniversary of liberation from the gruesome civil war and the horrific genocide that followed. Unlike many of its African counterparts, the ruling party that took over (the Rwanda Patriotic Front) put the people first. The subsequent milestones Rwanda has made in the aftermath of its terrible history are nothing short of miraculous. The combination of strict development goals, a focus on health and education, and good governance has attracted much foreign investment and tourism to Rwanda. The country is now regarded as one of the safest countries in the world.

This is not to say that Rwanda is without problems. Aside from the pain lingering in the country after 1994, the country experiences some of the same development challenges as its neighbours. With over 10 million inhabitants, Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa. This has created massive environmental dangers in the country, resulting in overpopulation, depletion of resources, soil erosion, and degradation of the quality of crops. Due to the huge number of foreign visitors from East Africa and the rest of the world, Rwandans in Kigali have seen prices drastically rise at the markets. This is putting further strain on the livelihoods of VFC’s Kigali clients.

The good news is that the country has increased its UN Development Index rating in the recent year from 161/177 to 165/177 and one can only assume that the trend will continue judging by the bustling and ever-changing atmosphere in Kigali, the capital city. Entrepreneurship is a national initiative and new buildings, restaurants, hotels, and programs are constantly popping up around the country. It is a very exciting place to be!

I have been at VFC for almost ten weeks. In this time, I have been fortunate enough to witness the impact of your loans first hand. The poor will not be left behind in the powerful wave of development that is sweeping across Rwanda. Particularly in the poorer, rural communities of Rwanda, I have received resounding feedback that the small Kiva loans have changed the lives of our borrowers.

The most encouraging thing about the microfinance operation here in Rwanda is that it continues to work long after the loan term has ended. Coincidentally, I had the opportunity to meet a client who had repaid his loan about eight months ago. At that time, he was interviewed by the previous Kiva Fellow, Julie Ross. His business and life had been transformed by having the access to capital. I asked him if in the last eight months there had been any other changes in his family’s situation. “What else has changed?” I asked. He started pointing around him, “that is new, that is new, our clothes are new, I have a new cow, all of that stock is new… everything, everything has changed.” This client had even started another business and purchased yet another cow and sheep. He also added that he is able to afford to put all nine of his children through secondary school! According to his testimony, his two eldest daughters are waiting to see if they will be accepted at university. In short, your loans are making a difference in Rwanda and will continue to do so long after you are reimbursed.

I have mentioned how amazing the degree of stability, peace, and hope is in Rwanda. These are aims that every developing country pushes for, let alone one that experienced some of the most horrific events in modern history. I believe that microfinance has played a part in making this possible, and that you as lenders have played a part in making peace possible here.

Microfinance is one of a multitude of efforts in Rwanda that has enabled the country to reach its current state. When VFC was founded (just 5 years after the genocide), its founders saw that if just one area of stress— that of the family business— is eased through access to capital, savings programs, and insurance, there just may be less anxiety in the other areas of life. Its founders saw that, even so soon after the genocide, financial security and economic empowerment often bring a safer and more stable community.

It is clear that microfinance’s contribution has brought more than just alleviation of poverty. Partnered with good-governance and foreign aid, perhaps by taking away the single anxiety of financial uncertainty, microfinance has helped make stability and peace possible.

Kiva and VFC are so thankful for your decision to participate in the great initiative that is micro-lending. You have helped bring hope to small-business owners, and peace to communities. Please continue to lend!

Sincerely,

Laura Buhler

Kiva Fellow

To make a loan to an entrepreneur in Rwanda, follow this link: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=117&status=All&sortBy=New+to+Old

To join our Vision Finance Company lending team, click here: http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=5273

Valentine Mukashema has been a kiva and VFC client for several months ago. She requested her first loan for the purchase of some needed materials in her business and she is happy that her target either purchasing those needed materials or growing her business has been achieved. She is very thankful to kiva lenders and VFC because of that loan which helped her to pay school fees, health care and provide more food for her family. Valentine, her desire is request a big loan in order grow more her business than ever and it is after that grow that she hopes to get more profits which, in turn will help her to buy her own house.