Spark MicroGrants in 2011

As 2011 rolls in, exciting developments are happening within Spark. We’ve been organizing and watching MicroGrants on the ground in Rwanda and Uganda since July – and learned a lot! I’ve been profoundly moved by our communities involvement and growth through the process of designing and implementing their own projects, from a bore well in Rwanda to a school in Uganda.

Spark MicroGrants was founded in 2009 with the first MicroGrant supporting clinic workers in Ilolangulu, Tanzania to increase the number in-clinic births. Since our founding and with less than $30,000, we have sparked hundreds of people into action in 11 communities in Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. Our grantees are building schools, providing food to the poorest of their poor, establishing access to clean water, installing power systems, building defenses against flooding, and more.  The communities identified the problem and the solutions – things they have never been asked to do before.  Through the process we have seen communities transform into active participants of their own development. They gain hands on experience planning and implementing a project and are enabled to address a severe problem. It’s inspiring to witness.

After such positive experiences with each MicroGrant, we want to scale up. We can do many more MicroGrants with just one organizer in the field and we’ve fundraised over $16,000 of our $20,000 push for early 2011 funding, enabling four new MicroGrants in the new year. This is possible with special thanks to the Segal Foundation, Yahoo! and all the individual donors for their generous contributions. We’re one of ten finalists in a competition for $5,000 from the Community Tool Box. To win it we need your votes! To vote, visit: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/out_of_the_box/finalists.aspx 

Along with starting new MicroGrants, we’re developing our follow through program, preparing to increase research around the model, and launching our U.S. based Advocates program (http://www.sparkmicrogrants.org/get-involved). In a few months, Justine Esquivel will be joining the Rwanda efforts to conduct research on our model and support programs here. Andy Pritchard is currently supporting our efforts by designing and launching the advocates program, where Spark enthusiasts in the U.S. can be involved with MicroGrant communities in East Africa through research, outreach and fund raising. Neal Lesh will continue to be our inspiring and organizationally brilliant Chief Strategy Officer and Teddy Svoronos will transition into the role of Chief Policy Officer, helping navigate the organization.

I’m incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to help build Spark MicroGrants and work hand-in-hand with both local communities and facilitators in East Africa and our growing global community committed to MicroGrants.

Here’s to wishing everyone a happy new year!

Kinigi, Ruhangeri, Rwanda

 

Outside of the northern city of Ruhangeri, Rwanda, near the volcanoes and a cultural center, a host of villages sit amongst potato, corn and pyrethrum fields. The area is designated to grow these three crops. Their potatoes feed a good portion of Rwandan mouths but people in the area usually only eat potatoes once a month. Recently the price of a kilo of potatoes went from 120Rwf to 60Rwf – a travesty of a price plunge. Yet most of the famers are not even landowners themselves. Wealthier individuals own large plots of land where the crops grow and people actually living in the area are highly impoverished and largely food insecure. There is not enough land or the commitment to have strategic home gardens that can really produce enough to feed their families.

Community members referenced past projects and their failures. One Oxfam project gave them seeds but when they got the seeds it was the dry season and they didn’t grow. The farmers didn’t realize it would be dry season because in past years they had received rain during that time of year. They mentioned that it was probably due to industry that contributes to climate change. They have been planting according to the seasons for years, but now, with global climate change, the weather is less predictable and less consistent, making agriculture harder. They reported the problem to Oxfam when they came for a follow up visit, but the village never heard back, or again, from Oxfam.

There are two primary groups in the region who used to clash, but now intermarry and work together. One group admitted to living day to day by stealing crops from the potato and corn fields. The other group described some small businesses they are doing. Some women sell charcoal in town. It is a three hour walk to town where on a good day they can sell up to 1000Rwf (around $1.70) and they travel up to four days a week there. Then they buy food and return home exhausted. The other business that was presented was of a sorghum beer bar. This bar is the one of the only businesses actually in their town and men and women alike go there. Kids at the age of ten were asking for money to buy beer. This is not unique to this region. Local bars often make the best businesses, catching those who have no work and providing them a space to sit and drink the day away. Their buildings are often the biggest and strongest ones in villages with potential exception to churches. The group explained that even with these few income-generating projects, almost no one has the ability to buy the mandatory health insurance. They get pestered by government officials for not having it. They explained that they struggle to get food, cannot cover school fees for their kids, haven’t any seeds to plant, don’t attract development because of their poor roads, rarely have safe water and cannot find jobs.

They are proud of two projects; an association they have formed to save and pay for health insurance for members, and another group saving program that they have recently started. They proposed a number of projects they would like to achieve. These including starting an agricultural project, fixing their roads, getting animals or manure and fertilizer, build a nursery school or find a place to fetch water. They all agreed that the first priority is food security and over the next two weeks they will be gathering and recording ideas for how to do this. In early January we will post their ideas online.

Ernest Gasabo, a journalist student at University is helping to facilitate a MicroGrant for the community.

Goats for the Women of Ubutwale Bwo Kubaho

After long debates among the women leaders of Ubutwale Bwo Kubaho, over the pros and cons of two final projects, that were goat rearing and dorm building, the women came to a consensus that goat rearing is the better option. Although building a dorm would create much needed housing for students in the area, appreciate in value and generate jobs and income rather quickly, the women became worried about the real cost of building the dorm and the risks that go with it. Goats, however, are easy to raise and they claim can reach all 1701 members in three years. They will purchase 100 goats in multiple installments to kick off the project. If something goes wrong, such as a goat getting sick and dying, it doesn’t put the whole project at risk – as the dorm project could.

The women are setting up a governance system for the project. A group of managers will organize the order of who gets goats when (those who are poorest will get them first) and will be responsible for collecting the first born of each goat and redistributing it. They will also take care of their group bank account where the women can save money for emergencies or starting new projects.

The goats will be used for meat (income generation and nutrition), milk (nutrition, especially for children) and manure (fertilizer for their crops).

The women are really excited and the ones who have done the most work writing proposals and meeting with our facilitator, Moses, are not even going to be benefiting directly from the project until a few years down the line. The head of the association volunteers her time for the women and only makes money through her work at a near by parish. She takes care of her own children along with orphans that she has adopted. She has been incredibly grateful and supportive of the entire MicroGrant process. Another woman who leads a sub group within the association was fighting for the goat project because there were some women in her group that are so poor that they cannot wait or risk the chance for development on a dorm when a goat could be given directly to the person and help turn around her life.

Karambi Village now has a water pump and water storage tank!

Karambi Village, Rwanda now has a storage tank and water pump so everyone can access clean water. The water tank connects to a pipeline that frequently runs dry. With the tank they can store water for the families there throughout the dry spells. The community members voluntarily helped construct the project and provide $19 for a tap that measures the quantity of water released. Charges can be made per collection that will go to the company supplying the water. A few kilometers away, on the other side of the hill, a water pump dug by Karambi village members and installed and donated by Living Water was completed on Wednesday. A huge thank you goes to Living Water for providing the materials and installation! The pump is on land donated by Fred, our facilitator for the project. It will be used by families who currently collect water from a valley, which was clean until a few years ago when development started taking place and has since become quite polluted and not safe to drink. Many people don’t even boil their water; leaving their families in great danger of parasites and disease. Both the water tank and pump will have clean water, good for humans and agriculture and it wont impose such a hassle to collect now that it is closer and reliable to gather.

The village and its leaders thank Spark for supporting the project and noted that it is their first time an NGO or donor has been there. They are proud of the project and held a meeting on Friday to discuss security of the project and fund collection for the upkeep of it.

In the same village a few men received goats as part of a nanogrant. Their goats are all pregnant! The individuals who helped lead the MicroGrant project within the village and have shown their dedication to its success are now forming a group to try and gain support to start economic activity to bring them out of poverty. They have written a proposal to have a meeting with us about how to do this and inquired about where to find start up money. It is this kind of proactive energy that is wonderful to see after each project is complete. Many members see the MicroGrant project as a time to show off their capabilities and hard work which seems to be something good to support! Hopefully as we develop as an organization we will be better positioned to connect our villages to other NGOs, banks and opportunities.

Four months in

After four months of being in Rwanda and Uganda, we have seen MicroGrants take off in communities that have never before had the chance to develop their own social projects. We have seen women in Uganda transform from subsistence farmers wanting assistance, to an empowered and proactive group who are building their own school for children and pressing their local government for support. Communities in Rwanda have debated and drawn up their own proposals around safe water, electricity, food security, animal rearing and economic development. Three projects are being implemented, three groups are developing their proposals, two are starting the process soon and many more are being surveyed who we would love to work with.

Implementing Projects:

- In Bukomero, Rwanda, the animal projects have begun; chickens, goats and pigs are now in the hands of the women and men who designed proposals for the projects. In the next few months we will see if the animals remain healthy, give birth and are passed on. In six months we will determine if the first round of animal owners (59 families) will have seen an increase in profit, individuals in the household with health insurance and children in school. Currently, ten of the families do not have their children in school, almost half of the group does not have health insurance and only one person is close to making a dollar a day, most families make under two dollars per month. The group is hoping that animals will help them with manure for their fields and a sustainable income source since they are manageable to raise, multiply and there is local demand.

- In Wanteete Village, Uganda, the women have purchased a piece of land to build their school on. They are collecting building materials and tending to their garden and pig project that they have started.

- In Karambi Village, Rwanda, the community has started digging their water well and members are building the structure for the water tank. 

Developing Proposals:

- In Ruhango, Rwanda, a community is in their first stage of project development where community members are discussing how to get electricity into their village.

- In Kigundu Zone, Uganda, women have developed their proposal for stopping the flooding that invades their homes and paths during the rainy season. They are going to review feedback from engineers this week to help them plan their trench. 

- Outside of Butare, Rwanda, women have been developing tens of project proposals to fight poverty through a communal business. Last week they reorganized and groups with similar projects collaborated on new and improved proposals. There are now seven groups developing proposals for different projects, including animal rearing, a wholesale beverage business and a hostel for students.

Starting soon:

-       A new MicroGrant opportunity will be presented to a group of youth in Uganda who are struggling to find education and jobs.

-       In Rwanda, a new MicroGrant will start with a highly impoverished and isolated community near the Virunga volcanoes.

More being surveyed:

In the past two weeks we have visited a number of HIV Associations throughout Rwanda. Some have been given support, such as health insurance coverage and machines for grinding grains, but others are new and struggling with stigmatization, food security, poverty and physical weakness. Each group presented their situation to us, to describe their lives, their struggles and their joys. Every single association has pointed to three big problems. The first one is that people with HIV/AIDS are still heavily stigmatized. There are many people who live with HIV but only the poor ones join the association. Some members described that when they tried to take out a loan or have a neighbor help them they would be denied because there is a general sentiment that it’s not reliable to give someone with HIV/AIDS support – because they might die tomorrow or before the loan is repaid. The second major problem is malnutrition. Families need more food with more diversity. The third problem is that of poverty and physical weakness. They cannot afford to cover all of their basic needs, such as health insurance and the 15% of health care fees that are mandatory when they go to the clinic for something other than an 'essential' medicine, such as ARVs.

We have also discussed about groups in the northern Musanze District in Rwanda where the soil is rich but malnutrition is rampant. Ernest, an aspiring journalist and recent University graduate is living in the area and knows the communities well. He is engaged with supporting anyone who wants to help them develop.

While these groups (and many more) are appealing to work with and would benefit immensely from a MicroGrant, we need to raise more support for Spark MicroGrants before we engage with them. By the end of January 2011 we need another $20,000 to engage six new communities. Lets see if we can do it!

Our donation page

Electricity

In Ruhango, Rwanda, Karambi Village has organized around the need for electricity. Their MicroGrant is for up to $2000 and will help them set up an electrical line into the village, providing a main source that people can then build off of to get electricity into businesses and homes in the area.

A number of the village members have already organized themselves around specific businesses and formed cooperatives that produce goods such as honey, bricks, banana wine, and pineapple juice. One of the most established cooperatives made products from bananas and pineapples. Their factory was clean and well kept with a small store and office on its side. They bought fruit directly from farming cooperatives in the region and had gained support from a Netherland based development organization for machines to press the juice and process the wine. The cooperative had twenty people and their shared profit would run between 200,000RwF and 500,000RwF a month which comes out to be about $17- $43 a month per person.

The MicroGrant is going toward an infrastructure project, not benefiting a specific kind of business or a specific home, but the communities ability to access and use electricity if they need it and for whatever purpose they choose.

Flooding in the slums of Uganda

Walking through any slum can make you question why urbanization is so great. Sanitation and sewage problems are disturbing by sight and smell. In Kigundu Zone, Uganda, a group of women have started discussing the flooding that occurs in their part of the slum when the rains come. The water from the open water system floods into their mud paths and into their houses, not only a terrible disturbance, but dangerous for water born diseases and attracting mosquito’s that may carry malaria.

In early October Aaron, the MicroGrant facilitator in Wanteete Village, approached the women about a MicroGrant. He listened intently during their second meeting while the women discussed the multitude of problems facing them: poverty and unemployment, orphans who have lost their parents to HIV and other diseases, lack of education, sanitation and flooding. They ultimately decided to address the flooding that occurs, a serious social sector problem not being addressed by anyone. They are thinking about fixing the trench which runs through the slums with a $1000 MicroGrant. 

This group of women are taking care of the kids, attempting to start small businesses and now volunteer their time to fixing a community trench. Many of the men have abandoned their families and left the women without resources, yet the women are pushing to get their kids into school and dinner on the table. Some organizations have attempted to clean up slums through volunteer cleaning efforts and education project but few seem to ask the community how to do it and dare them to do it with funding. We will now get to see how the women in Kigundu Zone tackle the problem.