December 1, 2025
This morning we had the privilege of meeting with a Digital Savings Group that is based in the Kigeme Refugee Camp. We were warmly greeted with singing and dancing which led us into their church. A very rudimentary building, but still their place of worship. They meet every Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm, this meeting keeps them accountable to each other. They all expressed thanks to World Relief for the help in being taught how to save. World Relief also works with all the participants on hygiene, good parenting practices and working on healthy marriage relationship balance. The group started in April of 2025 and has had a huge impact on the participants. Their thankfulness for the program and World Relief was evident in every presentation. We were led out with singing and dancing. What an inspiring meeting.
After having lunch at the World Relief offices in Nyamagabe, we headed back to another part of the Refugee camp. The team split into two groups and were able to visit two different shops each. Here we met participants in the Digital Savings Program who had used loans to improve the businesses they had going. Amazing inspirational stories of perseverance in the four shops visited.
We met David Janvier today, he owns a barber shop and phone charging business. WR gave 300,000 RWF to help. He took a 100,000 RWF loan from his Digital Savings group and gave a portion to his family and to get equipment for stating his barber shop. His business is the second barber shop in the camp and has been open for 1 year and 7 months. David has started by only working on men and children's haircuts, however, starting next week he will start doing women’s cuts, relaxing long hair, manicures and pedicures when the equipment comes and will do women's hair when he gets more supplies. His pricing is as follows: little kids 100 RWF, men's 200 RWF, elderly people 100 RWF, 3000 RWF to relax long hair, and 500 RWF for women’s manicures and pedicures. He learned nails and hairs in Nyamagabe at a vocational training school. He has a large cabinet that is lockable where he charges 100 RWF per phone charging. Many people in the camp use solar power, therefore he has more clients in the rainy season. He uses electricity off of the grid to power his phone charging business. All of the shops in the camp were built by a different organization called Practical action. He is also a Mobile money dealer, David gets an average of 10 customers per day, some times more depending on times when people have more money, some less as money wanes.
