A Leader for change: Fausi's Story

This is Fausia, but her friends call her Fausi.

Since she became involved with Kula programs, Fausi has seen incredible growth in all areas of her life, from building a thriving business, to providing for her family, and becoming a local representative to end gender-based violence in her village.

Before being introduced to Kula, Fausi made ends meet through small plot farming for her neighbors when she had the chance, but it wasn’t enough to provide the life she wanted for her family. In 2018, she heard about Kula in her community, and managed to attend classes at Liddy Women’s Center while also caring for her 4 children. She would prepare food in the mornings, attend class for as long as she could, then stay up into the night to practice and study what she learned in trainings. She learned business concepts, how to create beautiful woven products, and how to grow and sell healthy crops in the local market.

All the while, Fausi’s community at Kula became her family.

She worked, learned, and grew alongside the other women in the Kula program, building each other up in skills and in confidence.

Fausi graduated at the top of her class, and along with some of her friends, won the business investment competition at the end of the program. She has now grown her business to be a supplier of school uniforms in her village, on top of selling items out of their very own storefront to tourists heading to Akagera National Park. With her new income, she has been able provide a life for her children that she dreamed of. She renovated her house and has been able to send her children to private school for a better education where her son, Ali, is in the top 5 of his class.

Coming from a place of feeling lonely with little confidence in herself and her circumstances, Fausi is incredibly thankful for her Kula family and how they have supported her and shaped who she has grown to be. She is now a local representative with the local government in their campaign to end gender-based violence. She is a business owner, a leader, and an incredibly strong woman and mother who knows “more than anything, that tomorrow will be better than yesterday”

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