Bweremana community projects: women's groups in action

Bweremana is a town sited close to the north end of Lake Kivu, just a couple of kilometres from Minova. It’s one of five places selected by Arnold Djuma at CVPD, a Congolese NGO, to be a base for their work to monitor human rights and help re-integrate women who have suffered violence during the war.

They help a community to recover and stabilise, to find its feet. Like other NGOs they are needed to build foundations from which the community can move forward and as such their work precedes ours.

CVPD partners with Luminosity. Arnold told us back in May that he thinks that just months after being liberated from rebel soldiers, the community in Bweremana is strong and looking forward. He invited Luminosity to evaluate the possibilities for offering finance and advice in support of local business activity.

Shortly afterwards we started a program with five businesses in Bweremana including a shop selling cloth and another selling flour. Each business is run by a group of women who have collectively identified a need in the community and organised them-selves to meet that need. Here is a video that explains more about their work.

 

 

We have already seen in Mumosho that women in particular have the motivation to work together and the capacity to create a profitable and sustainable business. With the help of the Chef de Groupement in Bweremana and with support from CVPD and ourselves, all five businesses are now moving forward and we are confident that the investments will be a success.