Burundi
Releasing the Talents of Women in Burundi
In February 2010, Five Talents started working in the small Central African country of Burundi in partnership with the Mothers' Union UK and the Mothers' Union Burundi. In Burundi, Five Talents is working to alleviate poverty and address gender inequality by building the capacity of women in the following areas:
- budgeting, saving and borrowing - resulting in improved skills for good resource management;
- the opportunity to establish community owned and managed saving and lending organizations; and
- basic business skills training - to improve the performance of income generating activities.
Background
Burundi is recovering from a civil war that devastated civil society structures, contributed to high illiteracy rates and poor health care, exacerbated gender disparity and plunged large numbers of the population into abject poverty. Thousands of people died and others were driven from their homes, leaving women and children particularly vulnerable to gender based violence or abduction. Burundi is currently one of poorest countries in the world, ranked 172 out of 179 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index - with 93.4% of the population living on less than $2 a day, and only 52.2% of females able to read and write.
Our partnership with the Mothers' Union
In February 2010 Five Talents launched a new program in Burundi alongside the Mothers’ Union UK and Mothers’ Union Burundi. The Mothers’ Union Literacy and Development Program has been working in Burundi since 2000, successfully accrediting participants in a literacy and numeracy program.
Five Talents has come alongside the Mothers’ Union to provide training in business skills and savings and credit group formation to the newly accredited learners. This particular project will focus on the most vulnerable and repatriated communities and at least 70% of participants will be women.
At the end of February, 16 Mothers’ Union trainers from 6 different dioceses throughout the country gathered in Bujumbura to receive savings group and business skills training from Five Talents. The training that these 16 women received will now be cascaded down through the MU network and will emphasize the application of knowledge and skills to the daily challenges of rebuilding lives, communities, and civic bodies.
During this first year of the project, these 16 Mothers’ Union trainers will then train 110 facilitators to start savings groups throughout Burundi. Over a three year period, 340 savings groups will be started and 10,000 people will be beneficiaries of this project!