CARE International: Supporting women and girls in rural areas

Her Dignity, Our Pride: CARE International in Rwanda; supporting women and girls in rural areas to graduate out of poverty and live with dignity

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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Over the past 34 years, CARE International in Rwanda has and continues to support a significant number of women and girls in rural areas to graduate out of poverty and live with dignity. In November 2017, CARE has shifted from two (Orphans/vulnerable children and vulnerable women) to one program in order to deliberately address generational issues and hence multiply its impact. The new program, “Her Dignity, Our Pride” (translated into Kinyarwanda as “Agaciro ke, Ishema Ryacu”), focuses on women and girls aged 10 – 59 years from 1st and 2nd categories of Rwanda’s Ubudehe poverty ranking and aims to graduate them out of poverty so that they can live in dignity.

Established in Rwanda in 1984, CARE International has worked hand in hand with the government of Rwanda, supporting poor and vulnerable children, youth and adult women in education-Early childhood development (ECD), adult functional literacy, child protection (Nkundabana psychosocial support program), inclusive governance, economic empowerment including supporting savings groups, financial inclusion linking saving groups to formal financial service providers (FSPs), enterprise/business development and inclusive markets and value chains.

All this work has been done through strengthening 21 national civil society organizations to contribute to a vibrant civil society. Currently, CARE works in 24 out of 30 districts in Rwanda. In terms of financial inclusion, 18,500 Village Savings and Loan

Associations (VSLA) with 550,000 people have been created, 75% being women. In addition, 375 VSLA groups with 9,092 outof- school girls and 1,930 VSLA groups with 54,000 in-school girls were created. In total, CARE promoted financial inclusion for more than 615,000 people and they have so far saved more than $15.3M and 11,328 VSA groups with 325,849 members are linked to FSPs and have outstanding loans of $13M.

In terms of enterprise promotion and business development, project trainings, between 2013 and 2016, led to creation of 78,780 small enterprises and 115,535 jobs (10,385 full time and 105,150 part-time jobs). Under the new strategy, CARE plans to triple its reach to directly support 1,500, 000 women and girls by 2025 to graduate out of poverty and live in dignity.

Her Dignity, Our Pride program is embedded in developing a framework of complementary intervention programme models that work across generations for young and old adolescent girls, through to young and old women. CARE International Rwanda’s development programming is complemented by emergency programming addressing the needs of disaster-affected populations particularly refugee and will draw on CARE International’s expertise on ‘Gender in Emergencies’.

The development programming will address high rates of both poverty, and adolescent pregnancies. Such approach builds on CARE International in Rwanda’s strengths in country as one of the few international NGOs leading in gender justice; developer of transformational intervention models; convener of a committed and capable civil society; and collaborator with alliances, social movements, government, private sector and civil society. In fact, recognizing that we cannot overcome poverty until all people have equal rights and opportunities, CARE’s programming prioritizes working with girls and women from rural area fewer than three programmatic areas: