Seizing employment opportunities
in Rwanda’s tea industry.

New hope for those affected by gender-based violence in Rwanda

According to the United Nations, gender-based violence (GBV), especially against women and girls, is the most systematic and widespread human rights violation globally. GBV can include sexual, physical, mental and economic harm inflicted in public or in private. It also includes forms of threats of violence, coercion and manipulation such as intimate partner violence, child marriage or female genital mutilation. In 2015, the World Health Organisation identified six causes and risk factors of GBV: traditional gender norms supporting male superiority and entitlement, abuse of alcohol, use of drugs, weak legal sanctions, poverty and high levels of crime and conflict in society.

Rwanda has demonstrated the willingness to address GBV through laws and policies but despite great efforts, GBV remains one of the obstacles hindering national development. According to Rwanda’s Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, one of the main challenges faced by GBV victims is their economic dependence on the perpetrator. Victims who have no means to live independently from their perpetrator continue to live with violence, significant fear, stigma, and low self-esteem.

Against this backdrop, Invest for Jobs supported the international non-profit organisation Health Poverty Action (HPA), which worked with survivors of GBV in four districts in western Rwanda. HPA assisted GBV survivors to claim their right to decent and fair employment. Survivors were thus enabled to increase their autonomy and decision-making abilities over all aspects of their lives.

Economic empowerment of gender-based violence survivors

With the support of Invest for Jobs, HPA launched a training programme aiming for both social reintegration and economic empowerment of survivors of GBV. The programme equipped participants with the skills they lacked for potential employment, particularly in Rwanda’s tea sector, where more qualified staff is needed for tasks, such as plucking leaves and processing tea.

In a first step, participating GBV survivors received trainings on general work-readiness skills, such as soft and financial skills. The work-readiness training started in January 2023 and lasted for two months. In two modules aptly called “Work Ready Now” and “Be Your Own Boss”, participants were equipped with general soft skills required at the workplace as well as with entrepreneurial skills. Topics ranged from personal development and interpersonal communication to finding and keeping work, safety and health at work, workers’ and employers’ rights and responsibilities, financial fitness and exploring income-generating options.

Following these generalist training modules, participants received industry-specific and practical training on tea plucking and processing at tea estates. These trainings lasted for four months and took place each working day in the morning. Adhering to international labour standards, trainees were provided with personal protective equipment for tea plucking and processing. Furthermore, trainees could place their children in early childhood development centres operated by the tea estates during working hours, a measure particularly aiming to empower young mothers to be independent care takers.

More than 2,500 workers hired in the tea industry

A total of 3,876 GBV survivors, 79 per cent of them women, actively participated in the work-readiness and financial literacy trainings. As a result, 3,102 GBV survivors have formed in total 62 savings and internal lending communities that are linked to local microfinance institutions. These communities empower the participants to provide internal lending when needed, but also to invest in promising income-generating business projects. As of July 2024, the communities saved up more than 55,000,000 RWF (approx. 40,000 EUR) and already started 61 collective income-generating activities.

Due to relocation and other life events, some participants made use of the skill set mediated in the generalist trainings and transitioned to entrepreneurship. 472 of them took up income-generating activities in tailoring services, wholesale trade, mobile money services or various farming activities including modern farming and livestock.

2,889 GBV survivors, 79 per cent of them women, completed the next phase of the training programme: the technical tea plucking and processing training. Following the completion of the two sets of trainings, 2,534 GBV survivors, 78 per cent of them women, secured a good employment at the five partnering tea companies.

Beyond its job-creating impact, the programme had a significant economic impact on the participating tea factories in the Western province of Rwanda. Before the project, the tea factories were struggling with a shortage of skilled workers and declining productivity. With more than 2,500 skilled workers hired thanks to the training programme, the factories were able to fill vacancies in a short period of time. In one of the tea companies, for instance, this led to remarkable production increases of up to 19 per cent.

To implement this project, Health Poverty Action was supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) within the framework of the Special Initiative "Decent Work for a Just Transition".