Mothers’ Union Burundi (Literacy and Development Program), Bujumbura, Burundi
Mothers’ Union UK
Program Type and Services:
Christian Microfinance Institution: “Savings-Led” with Group Savings and Guarantee
The community-based Accumulated Savings and Credit Associations (ASCAs) in this program enable group members to mobilize their own savings and lend to each other.
Training focus:
Budgeting and saving skills
Business ideas, planning, marketing, price setting
The Community
Burundi is recovering from a civil war that devastated civil society structures, contributed to high illiteracy rates and poor health care, exacerbated gender disparity and plunged large numbers of the population into abject poverty. Thousands of people died and others were driven from their homes, leaving women and children in particular vulnerable to gender based violence or abduction. Burundi is currently one of poorest countries in the world, ranked 185 out of 187 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index (2011). The life expectancy at birth is just 50 years, and only 52.2% of females are able to read and write.
At the root of the country's problems are issues such as poverty and low levels of education among women; early marriage and pregnancy; and lack of access to land, credit and training. Some or all of these factors result in many women becoming vulnerable and further trapped in poverty. It is especially in more remote areas that women are marginalized and face fewer opportunities for training or for credit to support income generating activities.
The Program
The Mothers' Union Literacy and Development Program has been successfully training Burundians in literacy and numeracy since 2005. Five Talents is now partnering with the Mothers' Union in order to provide business skills training as well as savings and credit group formation to the literacy program participants. By the end of FY2013, 340 savings groups will have been started and it is anticipated that 10,000 people will be beneficiaries of this project. The target population for this project is the most vulnerable communities. At least 70% of participants will be women.
The Need
The goal of this project is to build the capacity of Mothers’ Union Burundi to be able to provide training and skills in the area of savings and credit group formation and small-business skills. We hope for women to gain literacy, manage their assets, take part in household decision-making, join a savings and credit group (ASCA), establish or expand their businesses, and become empowered to take a lead on development issues within their own communities.
We are just days away from closing out the 2012-2013 fiscal year, and I want to thank you for your support of Five Talents.
Your past donations, prayers and advocacy have already accomplished a great deal. For example, in Burundi, on the continent of Africa, Five Talents has served 13,584 women and men since 2010. There are 50,000 more people who have seen this program at work and are waiting to participate.
Burundi, you will remember, is still rebuilding after a civil war that ended in 2005. In the rural communities where we work, banks don't exist. Hope is almost as rare. Few women handle money or own so much as a chicken or a cow.
Many women in these groups are having their eyes opened to the way that God has made them. They are able to buy their own cows, chickens, and clothes for the first time in their life. This, in turn, leads them to recognize their inherent dignity and enables them to take on more prominent roles in their family.
In our Burundi program, women and men are learning how to read and write for the first time. Once the literacy and business training is completed, these folks use their new skills to begin saving and lending money as a group. Each "association" creates its own constitution and sets its own interest rates and penalty fees.
We want to take a moment to thank each of the companies that have so far agreed to participate. Please support these generous sponsors by giving them your business. Like our individual donors, they are helping to extend the impact of Five Talents' microsavings and microcredit programs into even more under-served communities, like this one in Burundi.
If you know of a company or organization that might be interested in joining this list of sponsors, please
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.
These are the companies that are sponsoring or partnering with Five Talents for the 2013 X-OUT Poverty Golf Classic:
We post to this blog three times a week, on average, but even regular visitors to our website are unable to catch every single article.
Below, you'll find a list of our most popular blog posts from the last month. If you've been away for a while, these program updates will get you caught up in no time.
If you're unfamiliar with Five Talents' microfinance programs, then this is a great place to start learning more about the nature of our work. As you'll soon find, every program is unique. Some are savings-led; others are credit-led. Some have a literacy and financial education component. Some target communities in urban slums. Others work in extremely rural, un-banked communities.
All of our programs are empowering women. All are helping parents to develop a sustainable micro-enterprise that can improve their quality of life and help their children to stay in school. All are bringing folks living in impoverished communities a chance to save money, take out a small loan, and learn basic business skills, like accounting and marketing. And all program participants are reminded of their God-given dignity and encouraged to use the unique gifts their creator has placed in their care.
Please check out any of these program updates you have missed, and share your favorites with folks on Facebook and Twitter:
Those folks now have money in savings that can be used to expand or launch a business, or help a child recover from an illness.
Those folks can now read, write, add and subtract. They have written their own savings association's constitution, determined their own interest rates and penalty fees, and created an emergency fund to serve others in their community.
The women have gained confidence inside their home. The men have begun showing more respect for their wives. And the families have hope for the future – not something to be taken lightly in a country that is still recovering from years of civil war.
Here's what a pastor had to say about the transformation he has seen in his community in Gitega Diocese:
"In our tradition, we're used to seeing women not able to manage money or buy for themselves. Initially, men were afraid of letting women manage their own money, but many husbands are now very grateful for this knowledge and thank us. One man was a drunkard and illiterate and mistreated his family. His wife became a facilitator, and she started [helping] her family, and her husband changed. The husband is now a member of the choir and part of this same association!
"This is a direct result of the literacy and savings program. Husbands are now applauding the work of this program. Many families have turned to God and are living in peace. Husbands keep asking for this program to continue. In our country, it is rare to see women owning a plot of land. Women are now able to buy cattle, pigs, goats, and rabbits. This program has brought unity and harmony in the family. Some people are so poor and lose hope, but those who are part of this association are self-confident and hopeful."
Isn't this testimony incredible? A husband with an alcohol problem is now singing in the choir – and being supportive of his wife, who has become a leader in the community.
On May 9, Five Talents participated in the 1818 Society's NGO Showcase at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. The 1818 Society is a group comprised of World Bank alumni.
The event gave Five Talents Executive Director Sonia Patterson (R) an opportunity to introduce the organization to a lot of new friends, including those in this photo. We set up a table in the main atrium and met World Bank employees from all over the world – Mexico, Uganda, Bangladesh, China. The conversations with these folks gave us an opportunity to highlight some of Five Talents’ distinguishing characteristics.
Mother's Day is almost here, but it's not too late to express your thanks and love to the special women in your life, while also empowering mothers in Five Talents' microsavings and microcredit programs.
Here are a couple of ways that you can make Mother's Day extra-special this year:
Submit a photograph of your mom, grandmother or aunt to be published on Five Talents' "Talented Moms" Pinterest board. Every photo is a $5 donation to Five Talents! Once we post the photo, you can share the Pinterest board with your loved one. She'll be delighted to see herself among the ranks of the world's most "Talented Moms"! To submit a photo, e-mail it to
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or tweet it to @FiveTalents along with the hash tag "#TalentedMoms".
Send your mom, grandmother, aunt or wife a Five Talents "Love Always Hopes" eCard that will empower a woman in the country of your choice -- Peru, Bolivia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Burundi or South Sudan.
This short Five Talents USA video ad is featured in Episode 70 of Anglican.tv's current affairs Web show "Anglican Unscripted." A generous donor covered the cost of the 15-second spot, which features footage from our work in Indonesia, South Sudan, Burundi and Bolivia.
Step into the shoes of a smallholder farmer in rural Burundi who lacks basic literacy and numeracy skills.
On first thought, growing sorghum, maize or sweet potatoes on a small plot of land might not seem to have much to do with reading, writing and arithmetic. You drop some seeds into the ground, cover them, water them and wait for them to turn into food that you can eat or trade or sell.
But if you can't read, how are you to know which seeds to buy for your soil? How are you to know which fertilizer to use on your crops, and how often?
If you can't count, how will you measure out the fertilizer? How will you know that the person buying your maize is not cheating you?
And what if the crop begins to look sickly? If there's no expert within a day's walk of your village, what good would that farming guidebook do that's sitting in the village chief's hut?
Before participants in our Burundi program join a savings and credit group or "association," they must first pass through a Mothers' Union literacy program. Since 2000, Five Talents' partner Mother's Union has accredited more than 66,000 women and men literate across Burundi.
Several years ago, Five Talents began partnering with Mothers' Union to help fund and support the second phase of the Mothers' Union program. The joint Literacy and Financial Education Program (LFEP) helps literate women and men begin to save money and take out small loans. They also receive training in basic business skills, like marketing and accounting.
Pierre, a farmer in Gatabo, outside of the capital Bujumbura, is an example of someone whose business has benefited from the access to literacy training and a savings association.
"Although I was a farmer, I didn't know how to plant my crops. What I got from the literacy [training] really helped me improve my agriculture," he said. "I've learned about seeds, how to protect the environment and the importance of planting trees so we can have a good harvest."
He went on: "The foundation was literacy, and now we know how to get the best harvest and the best food. We can also sell it and make good money. Before coming here, I used to sell doughnuts but was not making any profit. I was sometimes getting cheated, as people did not pay me back. My capital just disappeared. Since becoming literate, I have become more successful and am able to calculate my profit. This profit has really helped me, and my family is now very proud."
This photo taken by Five Talents Program Director Suzanne Schultz Middleton shows many of the Literacy and Financial Education Program (LFEP) members in Burundi's Gitega Diocese.
Five Talents and Mothers' Union recently completed a joint evaluation of the project, which has served 13,584 women and men over the course of three years.
According to baseline surveys conducted in each program community, only 9% of the women and 14% percent of the men had ever accessed a loan. Even fewer had ever held a bank account.
Upon finishing the literacy portion of the program, members graduate to savings groups, where, after accumulating savings and learning basic business skills, they are able to take out small loans to improve or launch a business.
Step into the shoes of a smallholder farmer in rural Burundi who lacks basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Pierre, a farmer in Gatabo, outside of the capital Bujumbura, is an example of someone whose business has benefited from the access to literacy training and a savings association.
