Ababerarugo is a saving group formed of twenty mothers that live in the sector of Jabana in Kigali city. This saving group has three main objectives: saving and borrowing; talking about health and life issues; and promoting a strong friendship among its members.
The 4th July is the international day for cooperatives. The theme for this year 2015 says: “Choose cooperative, choose equality”. Also in the month of July on its 30th day, the world celebrates the friendship day. The message that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon delivered to the world says: “On this international day of friendship, let us cultivate warm ties that strengthen our common humanity and promote the well being of the human family.”
ABABERARUGO is one good example that can inspire different individuals that cooperating doesn’t take a lot.
Despite the small capital you may start from, any profit made is a source of pride to those who achieved it. Therefore it doesn’t matter how small the capital is; it is the outcome from the capital and how beneficial it will be to the investor that count.
In the beginning, when all of these mothers met, they had a similar problem. They met in an organization called Gardens for Health International that works from Rwanda where it supports malnourished children in eighteen health centers in Gasabo and Musanze Districts. Usually, this organization puts mothers together, provides them with health and agriculture trainings to empower them so that they can seek and find solutions to malnutrition within their households.
Ababerarugo is a saving group that has set a functioning system and that is where it is grounded.
Mukamana Jeanette owned the idea when she was in the Gardens for Health International.
Jeanette joined the program after her son Cyusa Iranzi Irené was identified as malnourished. Had her idea not been supported by other mothers to the point of taking it as their own idea, however, it would have not been a success.
This saving group has a president, a vice president, a secretary, a treasurer and two advisors. Each time they gather, they collect savings and benefits which they lend to the members in order to generate more benefits to be shared later.
These mothers gather twice a month, and each saves five hundred francs at each meeting.
They lend the savings to the members so that they can be able to meet their basic needs but most of all to sustain them. When one among them needs the capital to start sell avocadoes, tomatoes, bananas, or to start other small businesses; they receive it with a condition to pay 10% interest for a period of two weeks.
Every six months, each receives their savings plus their share of profits they made out their savings. The last past six months, the members saved with a target to save Rwf 2000 more; so that they can be able to pay medical insurance for their families.
Ababerarugo is one good picture that proves that togetherness can upgrade people from one economic level and take all of them together to another one.
When the mothers are gathered, they don’t only collect savings. The mothers also talk about life as it is in general, their personal challenges; are any of them going through hardship? Here a mother doesn’t feel alone because she knows she has their support. Frankly speaking, who doesn’t need such friends?
Back in the years, a wife was considered only as the heart of a household, and the husband was its head. She had to care about household, children and husband. With development and equality, the Rwandan woman came to understand that heart works along head in everything. A wife and a mother understood that she has to work along husband to provide for their family.
We also observe mothers head of families. In these situations they are required to meet each single need. The World Bank statistics show that between 2010 and 2014, 52.4% of women in Rwanda were involved in the workforce to sustain themselves.
Such group saving activities can be compared to cooperatives since both have similar objectives. It doesn’t only increase their members’ economy but also increase the economy of the country.
The savings also help less wealthy mothers to obtain capital on easy terms at affordable interests; this enables them to provide food to their children on daily basis. For ABABERARUGO, to feed their children with nutritious meals is crucial because all of them have experienced malnutrition in the past. Any imprudence on their part therefore breaches the similar problems they faced.
As their name highlights, ABABERARUGO works for the well being of families. Family is the first place where friendship is rooted because being part of same family requires being friends. Friendship also is the base to able to cooperate and grow economically together. Working and prospering and enabling those around you to prosper build the development of a nation and of the world in general.
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