A big DEAL for Rwandan women

The DEAL programme – Developing Entrepreneurship and Literacy in Rwanda´s Southern Province – helps female entrepreneurs develop and expand their businesses. The programme also raises the literacy and numeracy rates in rural Rwanda. Together, we have provided training in reading, writing and numeracy for 90 000 Rwandans, working closely with CARE Rwanda, during the last decade.

A partnership that unlocks female potential

Our partnership and collaboration with the Grieg Foundation has been a great success. Their financial support, combined with a beating heart for humanitarian work is a huge inspiration, and of significant importance to our work when empowering women in Rwanda.

Together, we have been able to form a strong alliance to educate future female entrepreneurs in Rwanda. Together with the Grieg Foundation, we initiated the DEAL programme in 2021, with the goal of providing literacy and numeracy education to 7500 women and financial entrepreneurship support to 2000 women during the next three years.

Illiterate women become female entrepreneurs

This is what dreams are made of. Hope, education and freedom. For two of the participants in the project, quality of life has not only improved. These women are blossoming in their new roles and professions. Nothing is more meaningful to us than bringing confidence and purpose to women who are wanting – dreaming of – a better life.

For Uwizeyimana Sandrine, a young woman from the Rwamagana district, her acquired reading, writing and math skills have made a huge difference in her education as a dressmaker and seamstress.

- These are skills that are required for this education, and when I was lucky enough to get invited by local well wishers, I can now take notes and make mathematical equations for the dress measurement, as well as in my future business. Getting a sewing machine for myself means everything. I’m very grateful for being able to do all this, Uwizeyimana tells us with great pride.

Another story about empowerment is that of Nabaraho Immaculée. In 2021, her community gathered to choose their new leader. Having just finished the literacy programme, Nabaraho was now finally able to trust her heart and natural leadership qualities. She stepped forward and told her peers she was ready to take on the role.

- Through my already established position, coupled with my newfound knowledge and skill set, I had gained their trust for this huge responsibility. Now, I am the head of fifteen households. I am smart, and so are the people in my community. I owe it to my ability to read and write. And I have vowed that no women or man in my community will remain illiterate, she says through a smile that beams with both emotion and joy.

For everyone at CARE the Grieg Foundation, unlocking the inherent potential in future female entrepreneurs and leaders, is the key goal of the DEAL programme. Because, just like Immaculée so effectively points out, it is a matter of providing the opportunity for education. Because, in the rural societies of Rwanda – if money and knowledge are scarce resources – motivation, intelligence and craftswomanship is found in abundance.

Knowledge is power

In 2018, Rwanda’s illiteracy rate was at a staggering 27% of the country’s population, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Further, the illiteracy rate among women is higher than that of men, and the further you get from the urban areas the higher the numbers are.

Imagine then, if you can, being an aspiring female entrepreneur in this environment. Many of which do not have free access to education. But with compassion and love for their children and families, their communities as well as their own dreams. What then, do you do, to provide the knowledge and skills needed to aspire to those dreams? Our goal is to fuel women in these rural areas with pure knowledge. Raising the level of education among the female members of these communities, equals an elevated standard of living for everyone. Their children, as well as their male counterparts alike. Because if women thrive, societies thrive. It’s that simple.

Bridging education and utility through our financing

CARE and the Grieg Foundation are working closely together with local governing bodies, who provide educational facilities like classrooms. Other local organizations, like Duhamic ADRI and AEE (African Enterprise’s experience), contribute with their invaluable knowledge and experience. For example, Durhamic ADRI provides training for teachers and helps coordinate the programme together with CARE. This way, we are bringing real change to the lives of already hard working women, through locally rooted educational programs. Always with the purpose of kickstarting female entrepreneurship. It is not about learning reading, writing and numeracy for the sake of it, but teaching skills that can have an immediate effect on their income generating projects. This short term goal, coupled with the long term aim of lifting whole communities out of poverty, have been proven to make a life changing impact for many Rwandan women.