New program to help Teachers’ children to study on savings and loan
By The Inspirer.
Thousands of teachers in Rwanda used to experience hurdles to advance their welfare and fail to afford school fees of their children because of a low salary.
A new program dubbed ‘Nzigamira Nige’ that was established by Umwalimu SACCO within its bank is coming to respond to the challenge of lack of financial capacity to pay for school fees of teacher’s child.
Pierre Damien Musabyimana, a teacher at Groupe Scolaire Shyogwe in Muhanga District, Southern Province is a member of Umwalimu Sacco since 2009. He said that the current financial capacity of a teacher is still not sufficient due to a low monthly pay, which can’t easily allow him/her to pay for school fees of children.
He said that Nzigamira Nige program is a real response to this crisis and will help teachers change livelihoods.
The program was established after the research by Umwalimu Sacco to see teachers’ living conditions.
Teachers will be saving and get 4 percent interest rate up on their savings.
“This program will help especially parent-teachers whose monthly salary is not sufficient. i can start saving from rwf 10,000 and manage to pay school fees of a child up to university,”
he also said that that kind of saving can help a teacher himself/herself to study in university when he/she wants to increase knowledge and raise education level.
“It was pleasure for us to know about this program, teachers are not used to saving apart from the Rwf 5% removed from our salary,” he said.
Sorina Nyirantambara, another teacher at Gashangiro II, in Cyuve sector, Musanze District, in Northern Province knew the program last year on October 5, 2018 when Rwanda celebrated the International Day of Teacher and she joined and started saving.
“I decided to join the program after a long time I spent in local saving groups as I feared to use other banks. I lost a lot of money in these saving groups because their representatives lacked integrity,” she said.
Nyirantambara has 27 years of experience in Education as a teacher.
Laurence Uwambaje, Director General of Umwalimu SACCO told The Inspirer that many teachers have joined the program so far and it will help them tackle current problems of lack of school fees of their children.
“This program was established after the observation we did and found that teachers struggled to find school fees of children and afford basic school materials especially during the beginning of academic year. During that period, we found that many teachers request for loans to tackle these challenges,” Uwambaje said.
She said that the program will enable Umwalimu SACCO bank to raise the amount of loan for a teacher after proving his/her role in saving through Nzigamira Nige program.
Umwalimu sacco had a program known as ‘Compulsory Saving’ that helps teachers to save a small amount of 5% removed from their salary.
Nzigamira Nige was incepted on October 5th, 2018 and has saved over Rwf 107 billion since March 2019. In partnership with Access to Finance Rwanda, the program will also encourage women to save.
Seraphine Uwimbabazi, the marketing manager for Umwalimu SACCO noted that Nzigamira Nige program followed the survey conducted among the teachers from five Districts of Rwanda namely: Gasabo, Rwamagana, Muhanga, Karongi and Musanze where teachers presented challenges to afford financial capacity to pay for school fees of their children
Since its establishment in 2008, Umwalimu SACCO has around 75,000 members
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