Rwanda: News from a LendwithCare Rural Entrepreneur

TAAI contributes to LendwithCare, one of our institutional members. LendwithCare has recently written to thank us for our support through loans to entrepreneurs. This month they highlight Umutanguha, a microfinance partner in Rwanda, who supports people from small-holder farmers to refugees from neighbouring countries.

In March, Tracey Horner (Head of LendwithCare, CARE International UK) travelled to Rwanda to conduct a bi-annual evaluation. “It was my first time visiting the country. One of the things that struck me was how the terrain of the whole country makes people’s lives so much more challenging. It’s not called The Land of a Thousand Hills for nothing!“. She met some of the people whose lives are improving, thanks to their local partner and supporters like TAA.

Tracey elaborated “One of the entrepreneurs I met was Sala. She is a widow with 6 children and works hard to support her family by growing and selling a fruit called a ‘tamarillo’ [Solanum betaceum). In Rwanda they call them plums. They have a hard outer skin and a fleshy inside full of seeds, and they taste like tomatoes. She used her loan to buy seeds to grow more tamarillos and used the profits from her business to buy a house and support her children through school.
 Farming is hard work in Rwanda. Sala carries her tamarillos to sell at the market three times a week and it can take all day to travel. 
It takes a lot of labour and more than a year to grow a tamarillo plant from seed to harvest. Then they can be harvested every six months. Sala employs four permanent labourers and some seasonal workers to help her. 
 She was able to make all her loan repayments, but it was hard when she was sick. She feels positive about her business and her future as long as she remains healthy”. 

Click to read more about how Sala’s Lendwithcare loans have helped her business. And follow the impacts of contributions made by TAAI to LendewithCare.