Rwanda Micro Enterprise

The micro enterprise initiative in Rwanda, Sager Ganza Microfinance, uses business as an agent of social change. Sager Ganza makes micro enterprise loans to groups of Rwandan women. Many of these women have husbands who were murdered during the Rwandan genocide, and many have husbands in prison for doing the murdering. We help lift these women out of poverty and provide the economic benefit of micro enterprise and the choices it creates. In the process of pursuing a payroll and their dreams, together these women start to understand one another as people, without the filters, and this is our way of helping the reconciliation process. We don’t help the reconciliation by saying let’s come together at the community center and talk about our differences and why we hate each other. We say: Come to a meeting, we want to talk to you about starting businesses together and eventually, who knows, maybe you guys will talk about your lives, hopes and dreams and understand each other not as Hutus and Tutsis, but as human beings.