Immaculee Kabanyana was born in Musanze district and has been a member of the Kimonyi cooperative movement since it was founded. She is a widow. Her husband died here during the civil war, leaving her with four children, now aged 19, 16, 15 and 12. All four have been able to attend school, thanks to the encouragement and opportunities Immaculee has received from the Kimonyi cooperatives that have enabled her to earn an income.

Immaculate belongs to the handicrafts cooperative called Tumenyenibindi – “let us know other things” – that currently makes Rwandan baskets and woven plates in traditional designs for the Rwandan market as well as for tourists and export. She also belongs to a cooperative reserved for women heads of household, called Abadahemukirana, which makes floor materials for local Musanze residents. The reeds from which these mats are made grow in swamps outside the immediate area, so the women have to buy their raw materials from the market. Collective buying power enables them to strike a good price and they have also learned negotiating skills through the cooperative, which develops their confidence and business acumen. 

     

Immaculee has found that her radio bestows many benefits upon her family and neighbors, even beyond those they had hoped for. Listening together in a group fosters good neighbor relations as well as spreading the benefits of radio information. For herself, Immaculee appreciates hearing the news and listening to programs on current affairs, both about Rwanda and elsewhere. She especially values guidelines on how to educate and support her growing children, as well as how to develop herself further. Radio programming also provides the women listening groups at Kimonyi with frequent advice and information on how to strengthen relationships within their cooperatives, including how to ensure that all members learn to participate fully in and benefit from their organization.

Job - Nkundabana Community Mentor to five Child-Headed Households 

Nkundabana (‘I love children’ in Kinya-rwanda), is the title given to those generous-spirited men and women who have made themselves available in their villages, cells and sectors to serve as volunteer mentors to FCYF’s orphaned children households.  They have been identified and selected by the orphans in Musanze district, and then trained and supported to mentor the child households by FCYF.

Mentors may take responsibility for up to five households, and their role is to visit, counsel, advise and act as advocate in the community for all orphaned children within their care. They are organized to work in pairs for mutual support and, wherever possible, these pairs are composed of a woman and a man. Many of the Nkundabana have been orphan heads of household themselves, and so know at first hand the challenges their mentees face in their daily struggle to survive and provide for their families.

A kick-off training for Nkundabana confirms their role and inducts them into the local resources, services and organizations available in Musanze district. Such information can aid them in their primary goal of enabling orphans to access basics of protection, shelter, health, education and food security. Thereafter, they meet regularly at the Nyange community center to discuss general issues and individual problems, to which they develop consensus on solutions, together with FCYF staff and vocational trainers. Between full meetings with all of the forty plus Nkundabana, mentors form themselves into small cell and village support groups, where they organize collective self-help activities with the orphans, including housing repairs, co-operative vegetable gardens and animal breeding programs. 

Verena lost her husband in the 1997 infiltrators' war *. She was left alone to support seven children, who were all very young at the time. Unable to go out to work in order to feed her children, she struggled for many years to buy clothes and school materials for them.

Verena discovered FCYF in 2008. She learned that the foundation could help her organize herself in forming a self help group with other women, who are predominantly widows of the genocide, disease and Musanze's long years of intermittent violence. FCYF has been working with young mothers and widows in Musanze District to help them organize themselves into associations and cooperatives. The foundation has also facilitated links with other community stakeholders, including partnership with the National Council of Women, which provides invaluable support and leadership for these associations.

Verena’s own association is called 'Abumvaneza', which in Kinyarwanda means  'People with Knowledge' – They are a farming association and part of the reason why they have been able to flourish together is that they have received a sound training and grounding in the use of group saving schemes and micro-loans.