ABOUT 8,000 vulnerable women in Nyaruguru District, Southern Province, are set to benefit from a new project that seeks to help them get out of poverty.

The three-year women empowerment programme is a joint partnership between the district and Women for Women International (WfWI), a global NGO that seeks to improve the lives of vulnerable women.

The rollout of the programme has already kick-started with more than 3,500 women beneficiaries since August, according to officials.

The project offers beneficiaries training in life and vocational skills toward transforming and improving their livelihoods, according to Teddy Kaberuka, WfWI acting country director.

Speaking at the launch of the project on Wednesday, Kaberuka said they are working to identify and engage women in income-generating activities and equip them with vocational skills.

The activities will include coffee farming and processing, mushroom cultivation and beekeeping, among others. Beneficiaries will also be encouraged to embrace the savings culture.

"This programme is intended to support the government’s goal to integrate rural women into the economy,” Kaberuka said.

Each group of beneficiaries will be accompanied and supported for a year, with special focus on life skills training, rights and vocational education. 

Kaberuka said the target is to uplift the women beneficiaries until they become self-reliant.

By the closure of the programme, each beneficiary will be able to provide for own basic needs and that of their family and should be free from any form of malnutrition, he said. 

They will have also grown economically that they will be having the capacity to access health services whenever needed, be able to pay for health insurance and will have embraced family planning methods.

Nyaruguru mayor Francois Habitegeko said the programme will give women an opportunity and room to transform their lives while at the same time contributing to the development of their communities.

Calling upon women to seize the opportunity and work hard, he said even men will benefit from the programme, because "empowering women equals to empowering the entire families and whole community.”

"There are a lot of opportunities to improve our lives. We must get up and work hard if we want to achieve socio-economic welfare,” Habitegeko said.

The mayor promised continued government support to the population.

At the same ceremony, 32 couples who had been cohabitating for years formalised  their marriages in a mass wedding.