MTN Rwanda Plc has awarded five women-led lending and saving groups involved in different income generating activities including agriculture, livestock farming, handcrafts, innovative and technology projects.

The aim of the competition was to spur economic empowerment of women-led businesses.

This was on the occasion of the 4th edition of Connecting Women in Business initiative (CWiB), on March 14. It is an initiative that aims at empowering women in their respective projects, growing them to cooperative level allowing them to further improve their quality of life.

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Jackeline Kamanzi, Executive Secretary of National Women Council, noted that empowering women means supporting the entire family and community at large since they are the backbone of families.

"We are grateful to MTN Rwanda for continuing to drive this impactful initiative year in year out. These saving-groups are essential as they play a role in eradicating poverty, sustaining their families, and growing our nation.”

The awarded saving groups emerged winners from a competition that involved 14 savings groups in the category of agriculture, art, fintech, and women with disabilities.

They were selected out of an initial pool of 400 groups based on the performance of their ongoing projects and their vision.

The top three winners in each category underwent a Master Class in the areas of taxes, general legal matters, digital marketing, saving schemes, and conflict resolution, which will aid in growing their businesses with the aim of creating wealth.

The overall winner won the grand prize of Rwf2.5 million.

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Zulfat Mukarubenga, MTN Rwanda Foundation Chairperson said that the projects reflected the intelligence, hard work, and resilience of women.

"Congratulations to the winners and we hope this will be an encouragement to other saving groups across the country to join future editions of Connecting Women in Business,” she added.

Mapula Bodibe, MTN Rwanda Chief Executive Officer, highlighted that the saving groups were exposed to digital marketing skills, which resonates with this year’s Women’s Day theme DigitAll: Innovation and technology for gender equality.

"We believe social networks, for example, can propel these saving groups’ projects further...with leveraging digital tools to empower women and girls in all aspects of life,” she said.

"We encourage these women saving groups to not only keep using these tools but pass them down to others in their communities.”

The initiative is implemented in partnership with the National Women Council, Africa Evangelistic Enterprise Rwanda (AEE Rwanda), and the National Union of Disability Organizations in Rwanda (NUDOR).

Since 2019, it has supported more than 1,000 women saving groups both financially and through business acumen training.