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May 30, 2022

Caritas Graduation Project hosts its annual quarterly meeting

Caritas Graduation Project hosted its annual quarterly meeting on 30th May 2022 in Ntende Hotel located in Gatsibo district. Uniting all the project’s staff from the head office to the field offices, the meeting’s main objective was mainly to discuss the Graduation Project achievements, challenges, proposed solutions and the way forward (action plans).

Caritas Graduation Project comes after the Graduation Pilot 2021 Project whose goal was to improve the self-reliance and livelihoods of 505 beneficiaries identified from Nyabiheke camp located in Eastern Province, Gatsibo District; Kiziba camp located in Western Province, Karongi District and Kigali Urban through the provision of integrated, multi-sectorial services including finance, agriculture and livestock know-how, market linkages and advocacy. 

In addition, the project intended also to monitor the businesses of 835 beneficiaries who were identified and served in 2020. Moreover, the project intended to boost their dignity and free them from dependency and humanitarian assistance. 

Caritas Graduation Project is now operative in 4 sites namely: Kigali, Kiziba Refugee Camp, Mahama Kiziba Refugee Camp, Nyabiheke Kiziba Refugee Camp.

Project’s quarterly meetings therefore aim at sharing updates on the progress of project implementation among the project staff. During the meeting, each site manager is given time to present what is being done in his/her respective site to achieve the project’s set goals. Key achievements of the 2022 quarterly meeting are as follows.

From Kiziba, the site manager informed the project’s staff that there has been identification of 235 new project beneficiaries including 70 Rwandans and 165 refugees.  205 beneficiaries are expected to conduct different income generating activities (IGAs) and 30 beneficiaries will be taken to TVET schools. 

The site manager also informed the audience that training on SILC, IGA, Entrepreneurship and business plan development were also successfully conducted to beneficiaries as planned. Among 205 trained beneficiaries, 68 of them including (44 Rwandan from the HC and 24 Congolese) were also trained on Agriculture and livestock promotion.

From Mahama, the site manager informed the project’s staff that recruitment of 14 Project Community Mobilizers (volunteers) has successfully been completed. These volunteers were trained on SILC methodology, IGA, Entrepreneurship and business plan development, community mobilisation and protection mainstreaming. The manager mentioned that 235 new project beneficiaries have been identified, among whom 132 female beneficiaries. The identified beneficiaries include 164 refugees from Mahama camp and 71 Rwandans from the hosting community (Munini, Mwoga and Kamombo Cells).  35 beneficiaries were taken to TVET schools at BUTAMWA and GACURIRO TVET schools and 200 beneficiaries will conduct different income generating activities (IGAs). 

From Nyabiheke site, the Manager informed the audience that monitoring of SILC groups has been successfully completed and that all SILC groups have shared out their total wealth on 31st May 2022. The site manager also informed the project’s staff of a mini-exhibition organised by the Caritas Rwanda-Nyabiheke Refugee Camp to celebrate achievements of the project’s beneficiaries. The exhibition was themed ‘’Save Today to Secure Your Tomorrow” and took place on May 31st, 2022 at Nyabiheke Refugee Basketball stadium.

Updates from Kigali Urban’s site were shared by the site manager who informed the audience that monitoring of 16 SILC including 6 formed in 2020 and 10 in 2021 has been successfully completed and that all of them are still active.  The manager also mentioned that 10 SILC groups (2021) have recently shared out 16,718,050 FRW.

Four outputs are to be achieved in the Caritas Graduation Project and they include: Access to financial services facilitated; Access to self-employment/business facilitated; Access to agricultural / livestock production enabled and Sectoral cash grants or vouchers provided. 

Concluding the meeting, Caritas Graduation Project Coordinator, Mr. Jean D’Amour Nsabiyaremye thanked the project’s staff for countless efforts that are invested day by day to achieve the project’s objectives and assured them of Caritas Rwanda’s continued support to tackle all the faced challenges and to drive the Graduation Project to success.