Josephine Mushimiyimana stocking her bean harvest. She feeds her children on the iron fortified beans and supplies some to the market.

Empowering Women is empowering a Sustainable Society. Economic empowerment is a key step in making women full participants in their communities, through which they can contribute to creating jobs and social and environmental capital.

FAO and three other UN agencies (WFP IFAD and UN Women) under the ONE UN initiative, delivering as one, in 2015 launched a project in Nyaruguru district with the goal of increasing women’s access to resources, services, technologies and economic opportunities.

The project known as “Accelerating Progress towards the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women (RWEE) trained the 974 beneficiaries on better farming techniques under the Farmer Field and Life School (FFLS) approach. As a result, productivity of their agricultural activities improved, dreams were conceived for the first time in their lives; they came to a realization that they are capable. Capable in a sense that they were confident to engage in small scale on and off farm activities.

The beneficiaries being in the first and second categories as classified under UBUDEHE programme they have constructed better life of their families, and can now easily afford household necessities such as school fees and medical insurance that they previously received from the government free of charge.

Transforming lives

Josephine Mushimiyimana got married at the age of 26 to a poor man in her Bugara village, Maraba cell, Nyagisozi sector, Nyaruguru district. The only skill she possessed was farming, but her new husband owned neither land nor a job. She had to labor casually to survive. The worst part of their lives was the many children they could not support.

Josephine received support in form of a training on how to start a business, and was also given basic knowledge on nutrition and hygiene. She received fortified beans, a young female pig and training on building a kitchen garden. While attending the FFLS classes she got challenged, and with the knowledge acquired, she managed to small hire field for farming in which she grew the beans she had been given by project.  

“Productivity was high because I employed the techniques I learnt from the FFLS. I sold the harvest and contributed to the family’s income”, says Josephine a 36 year old mother of four children. She is now able to take her children to school. 

Family planning was another course that left an impact on Mushimiyimana’s life.

“I told my husband we cannot have any more children. We discussed about it and we decided to stop having children. I am now more energetic and productive than before”, she affirms.

Musanganire Marie Rose a 36 year old mother of four children before the project, had accepted her vulnerability because she was a stay home mother with no economic contribution to the family.

“I was constantly reminded by my husband how useless I was to the family; I think it was out of the frustration that he was the only bread winner of the family. When I started undertaking the FFLS training my eyes opened. I started doing casual work through which I gained capital to operate a small profitable business. I renovated our house that was near to collapse.    

Nyirabageni Florence, earned a living by working on other people’s farms. The hygiene of her household improved tremendously and learnt how to prepare a balanced diet thanks to the nutrition, hygiene lesson from life skill classes. Just like other beneficiaries, Nyirabageni now transfers the knowledge acquired to the neighbors.

“Like other people in our area, our household we fed on maize dough and at times potatoes from January to December. The project helped to know that it’s not those that have a lot money that eat a balanced diet, it's a mindset. I was encouraged to feed my family on more than two varieties of food. My children are healthy” Florence says

Gender inclusion

A maize milling machine was built in Cyahinda cell to enable the beneficiaries to make the most of the maize grown in lowlands all year round. The machine has a capacity to process between 4-5 tons of maize a day. They share of the profits and experience from operating the machine which is manipulated by both women, and men whom the project also brought on board.

Justin Ndagijimana of Nyagisozi cell started an aquaculture project—the first ever in the district. He trains other people from the district on fish rearing.

“I was becoming an alcoholic, until I joined FFLS. I learnt new transformative skills, I perceived an idea of constructing a pond to rear fish.

The beneficiaries selected from the cells of Cyahinda, Maraba and Nyagisozi, were given agriculture inputs such as the fortified beans, sweet potatoes cuttings rich in A vitamin, a young female pig and training on building a kitchen garden, as well as conflict management, family planning, and other life skills such as entrepreneurship.

Thanks to the project, her family graduated from the first category (the poor of the poorest) of UBUDEHE programme.  

Rural women need more capacity building and coaching on how they can develop profitable relationships with financial institutions. If smallholder farmers are supported to organize and practise modern techniques they can add value to their work, increase their credibility to work with financial institutions and secure loans to expand their on and off farm activities.Ends