HOPE International partners with PEAR to train trainers for the Anglican Church's savings program. Allow me to introduce the core team.
Emmanuel, Danielle (that's my wife), Roger (that's my boss, other than my wife), Marie-Jeanne, Malu, Jairus (Malu's son, not on the team), Rob (me).
Roger is HOPE's regional director over Africa and Europe. He lives in Brussels but visits Africa often. Roger's been in the business world for a while before choosing microfinance, he has wild stories about rabbit mating and chicken killing. He's everyone's best friend.
Malu has been here for one year but is now returning to the Philippines. Her son Jairus has taken some great pictures which I'm putting on my slideshow [top right of blog]. Malu is wonderful and a master trainer, so now everyone in Rwanda is masterly trained. My job is to not mess up what she has done. She has been debriefing us very well, but she is gone in three weeks. We'll miss her. Everyone here will.
Emmanuel and Marie-Jeanne have taken over what Malu has established for this amazing training program. Over one year, their champions have trained about 33,000 trainers and established over 600 new savings groups and converted over 1,600 informal savings groups. I will be very happy to work with them for the next 8 months. Hard working and dedicated, they will have much to teach me about savings, poverty, and development in Rwanda.
So, that's the core team, in essence. We were celebrating Malu as she prepares to leave soon. The name of the restaurant ... Heaven. I have to say, there was a pretty good view up there.
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