Wampembe Women's Empowerment Group

Village Savings Program’s where local leaders develop small co-op groups that share knowledge and build credit together are successful all over rural east Africa. The Rukwa Foundation was pleased to partner with one such group operating in the remote Wampembe village on the shores of Lake Tanganika. This group, organized and managed by Fr. Regius Kazonde, was established with a small grant from the Rukwa Foundation in 2023 and is only in its third month of operation.

120 women are now enrolled in the program, organized into 3 smaller groups lead by local elders. The women meet regularly and are given training on entrepreneurship, business practices, female empowerment, and other topics aimed at making their income generating activities more successful. The training is provided by dedicated local social workers who are experts in these kinds of interventions. The groups control a small capital fund of $800 that they use as a common resource. The funds are loaned out to participating women who have means of producing new income for themselves and their families. Funds are paid back into the group account with a small interest fee, and then loaned out to the next women in line.

This small start is having meaningful results. The three groups have each built a small business center from which to operate and have used their new capital for myraid projects that have successfully raised their standards of living by providing new, or upgraded income streams. The local econopmy is mostly driven by fishing so fish preparation was the main use of capital, but we also saw women using it to upgrade their existing restaurant/catering business.

We will watch this new project with keen interest and try to connect them with other succesful co-op savings programs.