Program overview
To eradicate extreme poverty among families living in the Bugesera District, Fondazione Marcegaglia Onlus, in collaboration with the Government of Rwanda, designed a two and a half year social protection program pilot called “Zamuka” (Raise up!) to directly support families living in extreme poverty to graduate to above the poverty line. The Zamuka program consists of a number of agreed and consented interventions between FMO, the local government and the selected families, through “support packages”. These will be provided to the selected families during the program to support the empowerment of the household to rise to a sustainable decent living.
Category one and two ubudehe
Citizens who are very poor, vulnerable and homeless or only able to afford some form of rented or low class owned accommodation. They are unable to feed themselves without assistance (category 1) or who are not gainfully employed and can only afford to eat once or twice a day (category 2).
Category three and four ubudehe
Citizens who have moved beyond subsistence farming, created tangible food security, can afford basic health care, education to children, decent shelter, regained decent social status and are capable of playing a role in community and country’s development.
Household Strengthening Program ZAMUKA
This program offers tailored support to strengthen families in need, helping to work, and grow and prosper as a family. From customized family counseling, income generating skills development, proper parenting, modern farming, family laws and gender training, they will be empowered with the resources they need to overcome their difficulties. The target group is 500 families, with an estimate of 200 adolescents attending 12 years basic education and 2,000 children under five years old. The program aims to support these households by strengthening their wealth creation, and appropriate family wealth management in order for families to live in harmony in four sectors of Bugesera District namely Rilima, Nyarugenge, Shyara and Musenyi.
FMO has received lists of families in 1st and 2nd categories, on Human Security Issues profiling, from four sectors in the Bugesera District, enrolling benefiting families into a series of both material & psychological support packages. With the packages families will acquire the necessary skills to succeed. All family members will be empowered to implement socio-economic activities to meet the needs of their family, through enrrollement in finance programs like Village Saving & Loans Associations (VSLA) and micro-financial institutions, and support to increase their agricultural and livestock production. The youth will acquire vocational and entrepreneurship skills to transition safely into adulthood & toolkits to directly get into incoming generating activities.
In the project implementation, FONDAZIONE MARCEGAGLIA ONLUS Rwanda will closely collaborate with the family it self, local administration and other stakeholders like health centers and schools on the needs of the target group and promising measures.