Cocoki Rising

One of the most amazing things about working for Indego Africa is watching the women in our cooperatives become self sufficient and confident.  Recently, our partner cooperative Cocoki, who we have watched develop since our introduction in Rwanda, found itself in a dilemma: their Treasurer was not properly maintaining their accounting procedures. Money was not accounted for, she was failing to appear for trainings, and entries were missing. 

Indego Africa offers to our partner cooperatives management training as part of our Hand Up program.  These programs provide skill sets to the women like basic cooperative management and accounting procedures.  Typically, our Hand Up Interns would teach skills like voting on committee members.  However, they had not covered that material yet so Jado (Indego Africa's Hand Up Coordinator) conducted an impromptu session, teaching the women proper voting procedures.  The women must have listened and learned because when I arrived to monitor their progress they had gathered a quorum of members to vote on the Treasurer’s future.  With each member speaking about the Treasurer’s errors, the women unanimously voted the Treasurer out of her position and replaced her with the woman who received the highest marks on the accounting procedures training exam.  Not only did the women vote out the Treasurer, but out went the Vice-President and the Secretary.  The reason?  These women failed to appear for meetings and trainings.  The women explained whomever represents Cocoki on the committee must be an example of how each woman should conduct herself within the cooperative.  Failing to appear for meetings and trainings, the women felt, reflected poorly on them and they needed someone who demonstrated dedication to improving their lives. 

These women, so used to being dominated by men, became strong and independent during this meeting.  I was moved by their success that day, and was immensely proud of our in-country team for successfully teaching the women the skills needed to become their own voice and surround themselves with a committee that represented the goals they aspire to reach.