The purpose of the Beacon Program is to teach women the basics of entrepreneurship.  The idea was hatched in 2007 in response to the obvious impact of the large number of women, especially single mothers, who were unemployed and impoverished.

In an attempt to make this a cooperative effort, the Foundation approached a number of local NGOs, such as widows’ groups and others, who were assisting all women.  Our idea was met with initial enthusiasm.  But as planning continued, we kept running into opposition to our rule:  ”women must manage their own finances.”

The mostly male managers of the non-profit organizations thought that they should be the ones to handle the money for the women.  Our experience in running a business in Africa has shown that women were more likely than men to use money for their family’s needs, such as food, clothing, and school tuition.  As a result of this impasse, all cooperative efforts to work with local groups failed.

In 2009, we hired our own employee, a woman.  Béata Musabyimana was given the task of setting up our pilot project of ten women.  These ten women were enrolled in our first business training class.

Once the business training was completed, each woman was given six K-lights (solar lanterns) to sell for start up capital, the group was registered as an independent cooperative, elected officers including an audit committee, opened a bank account, and rented a small store front.  They began selling other items besides the lights, such as clothing and food.  A coffee shop was equipped and a tailoring shop was started.  There are now about 100 graduates of the Beacon Program.

In 2010, an intern from the University of Michigan MBA program, Dale Jackson, designed a better way of training the women.  He gave lectures to a new group of twenty women.  Then he broke them into groups of five and, despite everyone telling him the ladies were mostly illiterate, told them to go off and come up with a business plan.  Then he would chose the group with the best idea.

It worked!  Each group came back with ideas of how to start a business.  The group that won was going to to buy chicks and raise money from eggs and meat.

One of the causes of poverty in Rwanda is the 1994 genocide of Tutsi. Beacon women find that will never happen again. They are committed to work and raise their socio-economic status, to rebuild themselves and their country. Working in co-operative helps them not only to join their efforts in business but also to remain in a solid unit.

Most of the members of Ingenzi za Rwezamenyo Co-operative are survivors of the 1994 genocide. Some are widowers, others are single mothers or live separately from their husbands and raise their children alone.

The 25th of April (mourning month in Rwanda); Ingenzi za Rwezamenyo Cooperative organized a march to Gisozi Memorial Center in memory of their family members and other Rwandese killed during the 1994 genocide.

You’ll find that in the pictures below, many of the women are wearing white and red, and also offer white and red flowers. Beata explains what those colors signify.

Regarding the meaning of colors:
-Red: blood of Rwandese killed in the 1994 genocide
-White: overcome the misery and preserving our dignity.

On the solar power project front, we’re working with 2 non-profit organizations to consult on installs for schools in Africa. One school, in Sierra Leone, is in the building stage, and will soon (hopefully) be able to give us information on all their power needs. Then we can go to work on designing their system. The other school, in Malawi, is in the fundraising stage, and we’re currently working with them to get their power requirements so that we can design their system.

For the Beacon Program, we’re proud to say that we’ve added an additional 34 members to the program! We expanded the Nyarugenge branch (in Kigali, the capital city) and provided the new members with business training in Dec. 2010. These women join an additional 20 women currently in the Nyragunge Branch, and the 20 women in the Ngoma Branch (in the east of Rwanda).

That’s 74 women spreading a source of clean, bright light (a product developed in Michigan!) to their communities and supporting their families with their profits.

15 members have also used their profits to collaborate and start their own business.

On the fundraising front, remember that Ford Focus Global Drive competition that an enthusiastic fan entered us in? It looks like we’re moving along in the process. The top 40 videos (as judged by fans and Ford) win $10,000 for the charity of their choice, so keep your fingers crossed and thanks to everyone who voted (we came in 28th!).

Finally, we’ve got an interesting new project coming up that furthers our mission to “create strong communities that promote a safe and healthy standard of living.” More info on that coming soon!

Happy New Year!

Last week, these 20 women received business training to enable them to run their business effectively. Koinonia Foundation benefitted from a University of Michigan MBA student named Dale, who was working on the K-Light project in Rwanda. He agreed to set aside a portion of his time to impart some Ross School of Business knowledge to the women in the program. (For future training, we will be using Rwandese business students.)

One of the things Dale did during the training was to get all the women together and teach them some marketing strategies. Then he broke them up into groups for a mock competition to pitch a marketing plan. The women had some great suggestions on how to expand the business and on additional products they could sell. I suspect that some of the ideas they had will become part of their business!

After the 5-day training program, each of the women received a grant of 6 K-Lights as the capital to begin the business. Good luck to the women of the Ingenzi za Rwezamenyo – Ngoma Branch. We’re looking forward to supporting you on this journey.

Here are a few snapshots from the experience. Thanks to Dale, for sharing his knowledge and his pictures. Enjoy your chicken!

Training was a somewhat relaxed affair – but effective. The women told us that Nicole (the business student who interned for us to provide the training) helped them like no one ever has. A lot of the women don’t have more than a primary level education, and very little to no education in business skills, but they certainly have a lot of experience to bring to the table. Nicole took the time to treat them like the smart individuals they are, and they reaped the benefits.

The other person you’ll see in this first video is Jerome, who translated from Kinyarwanda to English. The women said that the training was not only for business – but for English as well. They’re keen to learn English to be taken as serious business women in Rwanda and East Africa, and we’re looking for someone to help them out.

The second video shows the women putting their new skills (and notebook) into use at the shop.

My name is Nicole. I’m the intern. I’m a senior at Grand Valley State University and have been very lucky to participate in this internship program with the Koinonia Foundation this semester.  A large portion of my internship involved creating business lessons to teach to the existing, and also the new, Beacon Women. As these women were starting up their own small business, they desired to have more basic business knowledge in areas such as accounting, marketing, project development, and inventory management.

Traveling to Rwanda was my first time going abroad. I was extremely excited to visit another country, even for the 15 hour plane ride.  After getting delayed in Brussles for a day (which turned out to be a lot of fun), we finally arrived in Kigali.

The city was completely different than I had anticipated.  I had expected much less developed infrastructure and fewer modern vehicles and businesses.  Although, this is only really true in Kigali, because I experienced a much different scenery and experience in Rwamagana and Akagera.

But back to the lesson plans!  I was able to train the women over a four day period in five-hour increments.  When I first heard that I would be training the women in five-hour sessions, I was extremely nervous. The thought of advising these women in the subject of business, when I don’t even a word of Kinyarwandan, was very nerve-wracking.

Needless to say, I had nothing to worry about.  The Beacon women were so welcoming and eager to learn from day one, and my translator Jerome was a big help also.  My favorite lesson to teach to the women was accounting.  They caught onto concepts and terms that took me an entire semester to learn in a two-day period.  It was a breath of fresh air to have the ladies come up to the board to volunteer their answers and thoughts so freely and honestly – something I don’t witness a lot in my own classes in college.

Since I only had four days with the women, Koinonia is looking for a Rwandese business student to continue increasing the women’s business knowledge and improve their English speaking skills.  Overall, I feel so blessed to have met these women. They are passionate about their business and their families, and they are taking steps to make sure both will be healthy and successful in the future.

I feel this blog is going on a little long now, so I will tell you all more about my trip in the near future!

Nicole

P.S.  If you are ever in Kigali, you should stop by the Beacon Womens store and buy a K-Light…or maybe some clothes!

But, let’s talk about what we got accomplished while we were over there. I’m going to let Nicole publish some blogs so that she can give her own perspective of how the trip unfolded. Look for those soon; they will be tagged under “Nicole.”

Grand Valley State University business student, Nicole Joyce, with the women of the Beacon Program.

Nicole did a great job providing business skills training to the Beacon Program women. She did so well that we are having her type her lessons up for future use. And maybe this trip convinced her to pursue further work internationally!

Part way through the training, I told the women that the Foundation was getting a Rwandese business student to help them with their business. We had been looking for a sustained mode of business training since the original plan for business training fell through. We figured that this idea would be mutually beneficial to both parties – helping a university student to get an internship with an NGO and getting the women the sustained business training they need.

So, Beata, Nicole and I met with Nora Leary from Orphans of Rwanda. They are doing great work at that organization. I had contacted Nora earlier to find out about the book club they run with their university students. That turned into a discussion about internships, and I thought this would be a great match. She and the country director met with us and I followed up by filing the paperwork. By April 5th, we should have a few resumes to choose from. We’re very pleased to be working with some of the brightest youth in the country on this project.

After Nicole finished the business training, we handed out the grant to the second 10 women. We are so excited to see how they progress. Look for some video and pics coming soon on this.

And, finally: we are expanding the cooperative into the Ngoma district, in the Eastern province. The 20 new women have been chosen, and now we are raising the funds for their grant, which will be delivered in May.

From the original 10 women, we will then have 40, in a period of less than a year. This speaks volumes to the dedicated efforts of our program manager, Beata. How lucky we are to have her!

That’s all for now. But as soon as I get the time, I’ll blog about these guys out in Rwamagana:

Primary school students in Rwamagana.

Photo! Photo!

Until then, look for us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Links are the bottom of this page.

Ashley