I recently made a loan through Kiva to an entrepreneur in Kigali, Rwanda. As I’m headed to Kigali with a group of family foundations this summer, I thought it would be fantastic to loan to someone I might actually be able to meet. Today, I got this letter from the Kiva field partner in Rwanda. It’s a reminder of how complex the world is.
It’s so critical that our attempts at “aid” are well-informed so that they don’t do more harm than good. I’m so grateful for the on-the-ground expertise that Kiva’s field partners like Vision Finance Company bring to the work of trying to empower the world’s poorest people.
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:
To join the lending team created to support Rwandese clients, click
here: http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeamMembers/?team_id=5273.
Sincerely,
Julie Ross
Tags: aid, Kiva, microfinance, philanthropy, Rwanda
