Young Female Entrepreneurs build girls’ resilience through paid training in wall painting

By Elias Hakizimana.

Young girls and single mothers who dropped out of school are benefitting from free training courses in painting and house finishing through the ‘Ubudasa Wall Paints’ company in Kicukiro district.

Delphine Umugwizawase, Co-founder of the company say it aims at beautifying houses at their finishing stages.

“We do modern wall painting inside and outside the houses, we make modern ceilings and kitchens, and we do that with hygiene specialty as women and girls,” she says.

The firm is an idea and creation of Delphine Umugwizawase and her colleague Henriette Nishimwe after realizing kinds of struggles facing young girls and women in Rwanda due to unemployment situation.

It is two years now since they started implementing the project to train young girls and women to become self-reliant and enjoy their rights of labour inclusion in construction sector as women.

“We thought about something we can do to help fellow girls and women to reject fear and join a labour sector of such a kind, this profession keeps someone busy, and we cannot find time to go for temptations and no man can induce us in sex for money.” She says.

At the beginning, the firm was targeting young girls who dropped out of schools and support them to learn painting as a vocational course to complement the government’s Technical and Vocational Education Training programme.

“Our beneficiaries include girls who dropped out of schools, teen mothers and young girls who are HIV/AIDS positive. We managed to share happiness with them by showing them that life is possible through the world of work, they are now happy, and we thrive together,” Umugwizawase explains.

Both founders of the firms, Umugwizawase and Nishimwe have graduated at universities in other academic disciplines other than painting. They later found better to venture into house finishing and painting business to support the community by empowering girls and women. They decided to explore this new industry to supplement their university skills through research and learning them abroad.

 

Challenges, vision and wishes

Umugwizawase says that they manage to train beneficiaries and give them full equipment at work, plus transport fees and meals by using limited financial capacity they have.

“The situation puts pressure on us to have more money to continue this initiative, we are currently using the construction sites but it is still a challenge as we do not have a wide building workshop dedicated to the trainings to further their practical skills from the sites. In fact, we are having huge demand of new applicants on our online platforms but the space and financial capacity is still limited. I would request girls everywhere they are to feel confident in whatever situations, I also pray that we can have enough modern equipment and space to help more beneficiaries at the outstanding level,” she says.

Beneficiaries’ testimonies

Anitha Iradukunda, 20, one of the beneficiaries on site, says that she learnt about this opportunity through Instagram post, and decided to make a field visit, and applied to join them when she saw an open job advertisement.

“I graduated from interior design in secondary school in 2022, I was inspired by Ubudasa Wall Paints and decided to join them to gain these skills. I encourage other young girls who graduated and waiting for jobs to learn painting,” Iradukunda said.

Adeline Nzayisenga, 26, another young girl from Musanze District joined this company after graduating from INES-Ruhengeri Campus in December 2022, to add on some vocational training skills.

“Painting skills help me to look for jobs at construction sites instead of sitting down, waiting for being hired in vain. This profession keeps us busy and to avoid spending time in worthless acts,” she says.

“I can now perform all the basic steps of painting from taping the trim, determining the type of paint on certain walls, choosing the right primer, applying the primer, painting the ceiling, cutting in corners, painting walls along the trim and applying the paint,” she adds.

Presently, at least 40 young girls and teen mothers are unrolled in the first training session that will last for six months.

 

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