“I was studying in high school when I heard about the CECI groups, ” says Pascal, who lives on the Mutana hill in Burundi. At the time I was having trouble paying my school fees and the family that had helped me until then could no longer support me. I had to drop out of school.
From there , the desire to participate in the community microcredit group was born. I looked for a job and, thanks to the money I earned, I was able to feed myself and save. After a few months, I asked for a loan to start a small business. I remember that period well, it was the onion harvest season and I took advantage of this opportunity to stock up and sell them”. In Burundi since 2020, AMU has been carrying out – together with the local counterpart CASOBU association – the project Si può fare! The biggest challenge for those working on the project is to ensure that people can look beyond the horizon of tomorrow . To ensure that they start planning a future. It is constant and delicate work: because you have to find a balance between what they can buy today to eat and what they can invest for a profit tomorrow. Pascal is succeeding. “I sold onions in the neighboring province of Bubanza in Musigati, which was very far away and I had to cross the forest. But with this activity I managed to make a profit and repay the credit without problems . In the end, I understood that I should not waste the money earned by responding to immediate needs, but use it to evolve.
Then I took inspiration from the needs of the community: I noticed that there was no shop near us to buy basic things like oil, salt, or flour. With the profit I obtained I started the sales activity . I stocked up little by little and gradually added new things”. Today Pascal is proud to contribute to the development of his hill: “My dream is to see others follow in my footsteps and create opportunities. Together we will continue to move towards development ”.
