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Hilaria Mukatete owns two carpentry workshops in Rwanda. She has been a client of SIDI’s partner microfinance institution, Duterimbere, for five years.
Duterimbere began life in 1987 as an NGO offering savings services to women, then became a company in 2004. The NGO remains the majority shareholder and its mission remains unchanged: to provide adapted financial services to low-income entrepreneurs, mainly women, in order to help them improve their socio-economic conditions.
Hilaria Mukatete has taken out three loans, the last of which is still outstanding, for a total of 30 million Rwandan francs (around €15,000).
She tells us: ” In the beginning, it was a bit difficult to make a place for yourself in carpentry. It’s a man’s world. But I was able to negotiate with the company that owns a forest not far from Kigali, and then I made my way in. I now own two carpentry workshops with nine employees. We make carpentry, doors and windows, furniture and so on. You have to know how to adapt to demand. Tastes change, but there are always orders with the construction boom around Kigali, the country’s capital. “