Since 2007, in Burundi, AMU and CASOBU accompany some families on a path to improving their living conditions through community microcredit . The country is one of the five with the highest poverty rates in the world: it is easy to understand, therefore, how difficult life can be and how much families are called upon to face daily problems related to food, work, health care. The project Si può fare! follows these families in the start-up and management of community microcredit: these are groups of 10-25 people who self-finance by collecting their savings in a common fund . This allows them to grant individual members small loans, repayable with minimal interest, with which each can start small income-generating activities. Aurelie and Anselme, husband and wife, are part of several groups. This is their story, in the province of Kayanza.
Life before microcredit
The couple, with two children, lived in precarious conditions. Anselme had gone elsewhere in search of a job – always precarious – with which he could earn something to support the family. But unfortunately nothing had changed, all the efforts seemed in vain. The little that Anselme received as a salary did not cover all the most urgent needs, such as food or school fees for the children. The man confesses: “In the end I decided to leave my job as a bricklayer and returned home to help my family closely”. He tells
Aurelia: “At some point, having heard about community microcredit, I said to myself, why not? Joining a microcredit group would definitely make a difference . So I decided to participate.”
Microcredit gives first results
After joining a community microcredit group, Aurelie asks for and receives a small loan . 
With the money received he buys some cattle: “The idea of livestock was born from the analysis of the problems we had to face: in the cultivation of the fields, the manure, which we use as fertilizer, was often not enough. As a result, the harvest suffered. My husband and I decided to invest the money in buying animals so that we would have more manure available. We started with a little pig.”
Aurelie and Anselme’s intuition proves to be right. Their agricultural production improves, thanks to the organic fertilizer potatoes, beans and bananas grow in abundance.
A new vision of the future
The couple now has a clear vision of their family’s future . They have set aside a small amount of money to invest in the Bika Igiti business: braziers that serve to reduce wood consumption. Considering that families in Burundi burn a lot of wood for cooking every day, and this has a negative impact on the environment, the use of Bika Igiti can drastically reduce the amount of wood used for the fire.
But Aurelie looks even further: “My current dream is to progress even further to get, thanks to community microcredit, a solar panel , which can help us to power our house with electricity and thus live in an illuminated place. God help me, I hope to succeed.”
