Country Investigator- Rwanda

In 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king. Over the next several years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into exile in neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in 1990. The war, along with several political and economic upheavals, exacerbated ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in a state-orchestrated genocide, in which Rwandans killed up to a million of their fellow citizens, including approximately three-quarters of the Tutsi population. The genocide ended later that year when the predominantly Tutsi RPF, operating out of Uganda and northern Rwanda, defeated the national army and Hutu militias, and established an RPF-led government of national unit.

Rwanda is a small country located in central Africa and is approximately the size of Maryland. It has a temperate climate with grassy rolling hills. Rwanda has the occasional drought and suffers from deforestation and the over use of soil from over farming. About half of Rwandans are Catholic while the others are spread among other denominations. There are just over 11,000,000 people in Rwanda with the average age being 18 and the average lifespan being 54 years old. Rwanda has a president and governmental system based on that of Belgium. It is a poor country with about 90% of the population being farmers and thus has to receive substantial financil aid money.

Chris

Millennium Challenge Effort

This is a three year Millennium Challenge Cooperation that supports the Rwandan government's efforts to strengthen the civic participation, promote civil liberties and rights and to improve the judicial system. This program will provide training, tech support and grants jto the local and national civil society organizations and it expands citizen engagement by supporting independent community radio stations. Also, this program reinforces Rwanda's efforts to improve the capacity of the judiciary and helps enact legislative reforms that will strengthen civil liberties, human rights and civic participation. This program will boost training and tech assistance to journalists and the Rwandan National Police in an effort to further transparency and professionalism.

Through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the U.S. Government is helping developing countries address natural resource and environmental challenges.

MCC’s work is creating hope and opportunity for millions of people around the globe, particularly in Africa.

“We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty…We resolve therefore to create an environment – at the national and global levels alike – which is conducive to development and to the elimination of poverty.”
-Millennium Declaration, September 25, 2000

Kashf Foundation began with many firsts: it was the first specialized Microfinance institution in Pakistan, it was the first Microfinance institution targeting only women from low income communities and it was also the first Microfinance institution to charge a sustainable price for its services. Since its inception, Kashf Foundation has continued to trail-blaze – in 1999 it introduced the first pro-women consumption loan in the sector, in 2001 it was the first Microfinance institution to offer micro-insurance services by collaborating with one of Pakistan’s oldest insurance companies, in 2003 it was the first Microfinance institution to become financially sustainable, in 2004 it was the first Microfinance institution to obtain an investable credit rating and in 2007 it has been able to close over $36 million in commercial deals with key local and international banks.

Kashf's mission is to alleviate poverty by providing quality and cost effective microfinance services to low income households, especially women, in order to enhance their economic role and decision-making capacity.

“We empower poor women and their families to become economically self reliant by providing financial services in a sustainable manner. We promote economic self-actualisation by providing the poor with continuous economic opportunities so they can realise their potential and overcome barriers of poverty. At Kashf we believe access to financial services is the basic right of each and every individual.”

Kashf places the client at the center of all financial services that it offers and designs products and services in the light of the client's demands. We believe clients from low-income communities require innovative financial solutions to meet the many contingencies and crises they face as a result of vulnerable cashflows. With a constantly growing outreach of clients and a diverse product range, Kashf adheres to delighting its clients with client focused products that grow with their evolving needs.

Future goals are to:

• Improve access and scale of microfinance services by demonstrating that women in Pakistan are credible and are active economic agents by reaching out to 750,000 female clients by 2010
• Continue to innovate by creating client-driven products and services for low income households, including home improvement loans and a health insurance product
• Strengthen customer care processes by empowering field staff to listen to client feedback on a continuous basis
• Sustain Kashf’s financially viable business model of providing financial services to the poor and mainstream it with other financial institutions to ensure scalability

Summary

Chapter 11 and 12
Ericka
These two chapters were filled with women who had the chance to improve their family lives and they did. Faith in themselves and faith from others drove these women to better themselves and also gave them the opportunity to educate themselves and their families. As Moa said, “women hold up half the sky.” In these chapters, they not only held up the sky but soared.

Saima Muhammad

She was desperate to find ways to support her family. She had to have her daughter stay with an aunt because she couldn’t feed her. She grabbed up the chance to get a microfinance loan of $65; Saima bought cloth and beads to make beautiful embroidery to sell at the market place. The business boomed; she hired employees and her husband didn’t say much now or beat her. She was now a respected member of the community and supports her family.
Microfinances are given mostly to women because they are the ones who suffer the most poverty and danger. Women are the ones who die in droughts and famines. Older women are consider witches and killed during famines because the villages would have to feed them. The women’s mortality rate goes down when women are making money and contributing to the household. They receive more respect from the husband and his family—she is less likely to be beaten on a regular basis.

If women control the money—more is spent on children’s health and nutrition instead of instant gratification things the men spend the money on (booze, prostitutes, candy ,sugary drinks and lavish feasts). Only 2% of the household income is spent on education, even though it would eventually get the family out of poverty. 20% of the household income is spent on the expendables. The solution is simple—reallocate spending. The money needs to be put into the hands of women.

Another solution is put women in power. It may take time to get used to it but it will eventually be the norm. Rwanda had 75% women after the genocide of 800,000 people and women control over 1/3 of parliament and so does Costa Rica and Mozambique. Once women had the right to vote in the United States the mortality rate of children 1-4 plummeted 72% from 1900 to 1930. Go women power!!

Goretti

She never left the house because you needed the husband’s permission, which he never gave. She snuck out and became a CARE member in her village. Women empowered to make a difference in village and give a hand up to her fellow women. Loans, family planning, STD and AIDs are testing, running out a 2nd wife potential, education, maternal education and general empowerment to make a difference in their world.
It isn’t all one hundred percent fixed and many things can go wrong but atleast women are helping women. It is a beautiful thing.

summary chapter 9 and 10

In Pakistan, there was a woman from a Christian minority who wanted to pick her own husband. This was a breach of family honor and her brother’s fought with each other trying to decide whether they should kill her or sell her to a brothel. The woman escaped while the brothers were arguing.

In Riyadh, Nick learned that there are female judges in courts, but woman testifying would always lose to a man, even if that man is uneducated. For a woman to travel abroad, she has to get permission from her husband. The Vice President is a woman and even she needs permission to travel. Also, 65% of Iranian university students are females because they score higher on entrance exams than men do.

A woman named Sakena Yacoobi runs an aid organization called the Afghan Institute of learning. She went to college is Stockton, California at the University of the Pacific although she was accepted by Kubal University; she could not attend because of the violence at that time. Sekena opened girl’s schools in Peshwar and had 1500 students by the second year. When the Taliban fell, she moved her operation back to Kabul and provides education for 350,000 women and children in Afghanistan.

A 13 year-old girl named Dai Maju from China who lived in a small village was forced to drop out of school when she reached the 6^th grade. An American read the story written about this girl and her family and after some confusion, the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company donated $10,000 to build a new school and to pay the tuitions. Dai became an accountant and was able to support her family. There were many other girls who benefited from that same donation from the same village that Dai was from.

Angeline Mugwendere was a poor farm girl from Zimbabwe who had nothing. When she took the 6^th grade nationwide graduation exam, she scored on of the highest marks in the country. Ann Cotton started the Campaign for Female Education, or “Camfed”. One of the first girls Ann supported was Angeline. Camfed was expanded to Zambia, Tanzania, and Ghana. It helps over 400,000 children attend school every year.

Adam

Organization Investigator

Some organizations and people are:

CARE- which built and operated schools including for girls in troubled areas.

BRAC- which was a Bangladeshi run project in Afghan provinces, this succeeded because the villagers would protect the employees of the project. It was important to get support form the local mullahs and negotiate what subject girls would study and use Pakistani text books rather than Afghan government texts.

UNFPA- supports the work of the UN population fund

Sakena said "If people are educated then women will not be abused or tortured"

Levy- helped to organize and pay for poor families to keep their children in schools

WFP and UNICEF- the WFP is the world food program and they distributed food to rural schools where the children would get a free meal during the day.
George McGovern also helped with this.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Issue Investigator—Chapter 9—10—Ericka
The issues in these two chapters were—is Islam misogynistic, small things can make a difference in education (deworming, bribery, feeding children) and the debate of education for females but scattered throughout the pages where mistakes made by foreigners. That will be my focus as the issue investigator because it interested me.
FemCare (arm of Proctor and Gamble) decide to help girls stay in school in Africa by handing out sanitary products for menstruation. Well, running water was needed for toilets, which the built. Then there was the taboo about female blood and had to purchase incinerators to dispose of the female products. All of this was fine and dandy but not well thought out. The company spent more money than needed because they didn’t think things out. Money they could have put toward tuition, uniforms and other things.
Andrew Mwenda said “the international cocktail of good intentions.” The people who aid other countries truly have their hearts in the right places but sometimes need to take a back seat, write the check and “carry the luggage” so to speak. A lot of the mistakes are made because customs and cultures aren’t taken into account in what is being done.
Handing out soap to Afghan women is saying a women are promiscuous, not a great thing to be saying about Afghan women. Christians coming in and asking Afghan women to take of their burka, read, work, be strong is quite a lot for people who lived this way all their lives. Some educated Afghan women feel we run around naked; there are more important issues than the way they dress.
Another project gone badly: cassava. Women grew this potato like root in Nigeria—the women sold surplus at markets (a little extra money for the women. The UN project got seeds that grew better and it did. Now, the women can’t harvest the entire product and it has more cyanide than the original type. The ground water is being contaminated—have to take care of it. The need for processing equipment to take care of the more product. Well, now the women are making more money and the men come and take over what the women normally had done all along. Women have no money now. Did this really work?
Maybe we need to stop being so in your face and back up a bit. Hire people who are from the community to make hygiene suggestions to Afghan women—not from people who don’t believe as they do. People in a community need to help the community. I know if someone, from half way across the world and a totally different religion, came to my house and said get an education, clean yourself, be strong and dress differently. I would probably tell them to go pound sand—you are messin’ with my life, culture, beliefs and community. Sometimes things work the way they do for a reason. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.