Global Communities-Peace Corps Partnership Continues

Global Communities-Peace Corps Partnership Continues

Last month under the USAID Twiyubake program, Global Communities partnered with the US Peace Corps to deliver training on the joint Community Finance Initiative (CFI)  to 22 Peace Corps Volunteers, 23 Community Counterpart Facilitators, and 25 staff from Rwandan Partners Organizations (RPOs).

Participants were trained in various aspects of community finance and savings education. They learned how to engage members of their communities to form Integrated Savings and Lending (ISLG) groups, and will return to their communities to mobilize savings groups of at least 20 members each, and deliver an 18-week training course designed to improve members’ capacity and knowledge of budgeting, family savings, savings and loan groups, and managing small enterprises.

This initiative is a continuation of the Global Communities-Peace Corps partnership under the Ejo Heza program, which delivered the CFI training to over 40 Peace Corps volunteers and 50 Community Counterpart Facilitators, who provided the training to over 1,600 beneficiaries in their communities.

These beneficiaries went on to start 110 small businesses. These groups are not only trained in various aspects of community finance, but also taught how to establish savings and lending groups, which are eventually linked with community savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) once they have become more experienced.
Global Communities and Peace Corps will partner once again in August 2016 to deliver the second round of the CFI training, which will focus on more in-depth aspects of financial management and community finance