Households in Rulindo District have formed a savings group ‘Tuzamurane’, loosely translated as ‘raise one another’, with an aim to start a pig farming project their family needs.
They told Business Times that the idea came up four months ago as a way to raise funds for Community Based Health Insurance-Mutuelle de Sante, improve their food security and reduce stunting.
They are part of 109 households with 348 members who received support of health insurance cards and then after decided to form a savings group.
Members meet every month to pool their savings together in Gitare cell with a minimum contributions of Rwf1,000 per share but members can have more shares.
"We used to be given health insurance cards but later when we were given pigs for rearing, we decided to form a saving group so that we can have financial capacity to increase number of pigs and afford feeds for them,” said Donatien Mugabuhamye, the group’s president.
"We are generating income from pigs rearing, we will become self-reliant and afford health insurance premiums, fight malnutrition among others. We deposit our savings into SACCO,” he added.
Fiacre Mwumvinezayimana , The Executive Secretary of Base Sector urged all households from 1st and 2nd Ubudehe categories who are given health insurance support to starting paving their way towards self-reliance.
He told them that through their saving groups, they also manage to join the Long-term Saving Scheme dubbed "Ejo Heza” which was launched during the 16th National Dialogue – Umushyikira¬no – in December last year.
Only 8 percent of over 5.4 million in the working-age bracket in Rwanda are engaged in long-term saving through a pension scheme.
Rwanda seeks to at least double the current savings level by 2024, from 10.6 percent to 23 percent under National Strategy for Transformation.
"You have to know that every person from the 1st and 2nd ubudehe category who saves Rwf15,000 under that scheme, government will add them the same amount,” he said.
Those in category three will get 50 per cent bonus from the Government.
The Ministry of Local Government statistics shows that there are 376,192 households with 1,480,167 people in first ubudehe category which constitutes 16 per cent of the population.
The second Ubudehe category has 703,461 households, composed of 3,077,816 people, which is 29.8 per cent of the population, while the third and fourth categories have 53 per cent and 0.5 per cent of the population, respectively.
For these categories to afford basic needs such as health insurance premiums, a savings culture through savings groups is the best approach, the official emphasised.
Francois Xavier Gatete, legal representative of Manzi Foundation, which partnered with local leaders to encourage the families to join saving groups, said that the approach will be scaled up in all sectors of Rulindo District once it becomes successful.
"After helping them to get health insurance cover, we thought of how they can work to become self-reliant. Those who got pigs will pass a subsquent piglet on to other needy families who have also to form saving groups to ensure a sustainable pigs rearing project,” he said.
He said the members of the saving group were also trained on business skills in terms of rearing pigs.
"They have to accumulate savings so that they afford insemination cost, animal feeds and increase the number of pigs,” he said.
Livestock master plan projects an increase of 239 per cent of pork in the next 5 years moving from 19,000 to 67,000 metric tons of pork, the demand which has to motivate farmers to embrace pigs rearing.
editor@newtimesrwanda.com