Saving for a Brighter Future

Esperance Akimanizanye is a wife and mother of two young boys who lives in Remera, Rwanda. When Saddleback sent PEACE Plan volunteers to Rwanda  to offer training on savings groups, she had no idea how much her life was about to change.

The first project Esperance’s savings group took on was to save enough money to buy mattresses and bed sheets for each member of the group. Before the savings group, most of the members and their families slept on thin mats on the hard floor. But the group pooled their savings together and furnished each family with a mattress and bed sheets.

“After that, our next project was health insurance,” says Esperance. Now the families were covered when they were ill, instead of struggling to find a way to pay for care. Once Esperance’s savings group accomplished these two major goals, they began focusing on savings and using that money to offer small loans. In a savings group, loans can only be given to members of that group, and the loan must be repaid within two months, including a small amount of interest. The interest helps the savings group grow financially.

 Esperance feels she was empowered after the PEACE Plan Savings Group training because it showed her how to handle her money in a more responsible way and how to operate something akin to a small business in a more professional way.

 “A savings group is a good program to have in a church environment. The church is the place where many people meet from many different levels of life.” Faith-based savings groups members see a major difference when compared to their non-faith-based counterparts. With Christ as the center, the groups become like family as they encourage each other in areas of life beyond mere finances. A savings groups also empowers individuals so they are not forced to turn to their family and friends for financial assistance. They are able to become self-sustaining.

 “If you go to a person and express your need to them, they often still don’t help you. And if they do, they are always putting pressure on you to repay.” The savings group allows for loans that are conducted peacefully because it has procedures and guidelines in place. Esperance says that there have been zero defaults on the savings group’s loans because the savings groups rely on its members to be faithful.

The savings group has given Esperance a new vision for her life. She strongly feels that God has called her to help others form their own savings groups. “It was already in my life and I waited for the Lord to open the right opportunity for me to follow my calling.”

Click HERE to learn more about The PEACE Plan and savings groups.