SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

since 2015, we have introduced a pre-cooperative movement in the community on behalf of development cells. Poverty is more marked in rural areas than in urban areas. So cooperatives will help people to get out of dependency, promote co-responsibility of members and integral and sustainable development. They will also contribute to peace building in Burundi.

Today our country is in extreme poverty and dependence on foreign aid, so it is important to create a system that will lead the population, especially the young and vulnerable groups of the poor, to economic autonomy. The co-responsibility of members will furthermore strengthen reconciliation, social cohesion and mutual aid within the communities.

*Development cells: In order to promote the cooperative movement, we organized workshops for leaders of development cells on entrepreneurship, transformational leadership and moral values that enable cooperative development through a training module called ‘Giriteka n'itekane’ (have dignity and peace).

*Savings and loan groups, health insurance, etc.) Members meet once a week to exchange ideas and give their contributions for social assistance and strengthen their social cohesion. This is the beginning of health insurance. These activities will soon be structured as mutual health insurance.

Members of these development cells, after having saved, can cooperate by investing in agro-pastoral or commercial activities as income-generating activities.

Based on the awareness sessions on integral development and the fight against poverty, the members grouped in cells meet once a week and exchange ideas based on the word of God and experiences to get out of poverty.

During the same sessions the members give financial contributions of which 70% are allotted for income-generating activities and 30% for social assistance among themselves.