Day 1 – On the road
Today, I am leaving for Burundi…or rather, we are! This time there is a little assistant traveling with me. We will visit the province of Ruyigi where we are completing the project Water source of life, thanks to which a 25.8 km aqueduct was built, and we are completing ecological latrines for 20 families.
In the same area, in recent years we have started and supported several community microcredit groups. Members of these groups pool their savings and mutually grant each other small loans, which are necessary to start and manage income-generating activities. We will visit the water infrastructures, meet the communities, microcredit groups, families and share with them the progress of the project, collecting observations, thoughts, criticisms and suggestions.
The second stop on our journey will be the province of Kayanza where microcredit groups have been started for three years thanks to the project It can be done. Microcredit and community microfinance . In the area we are also completing a feasibility study to start an intervention for access to drinking water. Here too we will meet the people involved and listen to the voice of those who, too often, do not have the necessary means to be heard.
Day 2 – Ruyigi Province
We are finally on the field in Ruyigi to monitor the project activities. The first meeting of the day is with the local authorities. With me there is the CASOBU staff (the local counterpart of the project).
Buhoro Léopold (councillor in charge of development for the province of Ruyigi) and Ndakazi Séverin (permanent executive secretary for the municipality) tell us that they greatly appreciated our work, not only for the actions carried out but also and above all for the way in which they were carried out: the constant dialogue with local authorities and their involvement.
They will be entrusted with the infrastructures built, so that they can be responsible for them in the years to come. Their satisfaction is tangible: “The aqueduct for the supply of drinking water is a great answer to the needs of our community”, the councilor confides to me.
Special appreciation was given to the initiatives and meetings organized to arrive at an inter-municipal management of the infrastructures that, in fact, passing through both the Municipality of Ruyigi and that of Butezi, will need joint management.
Day 3 – Ruyigi Province
In the municipality of Kigamba they are waiting for us in the large space in front of the church: the children are looking at us with wide eyes, the adults are laughing. It is an event that a muzungu arrives here, but it is absolutely the first time that she arrives accompanied by a petite muzungu .
In Kigamba there are 17 community microcredit groups and, they tell us, “today people are able to meet their daily needs thanks to these small loans.”
Some have bought a goat that has given birth to babies, some a hen, some tell us that thanks to the microcredit group they have paid the school fees that they were unable to pay before and have finally sent their children to school.
“But how do you pay back the loans?” I ask. “If I have to pay my tuition, I take a loan and split it in two: one part I pay my tuition with, and the other part I invest in a business that allows me to pay back the loan.”
There’s something new on the road: small resellers. How do they work? “We take a small loan and buy some products in Ruyigi, then we come back and resell them. That’s how we do it.”
After the meeting we walk into the village to reach some families and listen to their experience. They tell us how water has already significantly improved their living conditions in the last year : “We thank AMU and CASOBU who provided us with access to clean water, before we drank really dirty water. And I thank you who came from so far away to visit us. Down here now the children no longer contract diseases caused by dirty water, now we drink clean water that protects our children. We are grateful.”
(End of first part)
