A new challenge !
A year and half ago I set up a microfinance branch in Antwerp, Belgium for microStart the largest microfinance institution in the country. I was so excited to have been selected for this particular function. It has been my long time career dream to combine business and social work. Due to long, intensive working hours and a great team that I hired our microfinance branch has become a success. It was a tough time but looking back we had so much fun. Being a microfinance manager is no longer a job but it has become my life style. Now that we have exceeded our targets and the agency is running smoothly I have time again for new personal ventures. So I began searching around…
As microStart shares are 70% owned by BNP Paribas ‘Fortis’, (one of the largest bank groups in the world https://www.bnpparibasfortis.be ), I came in contact with BenevoLab headed by Chantal Katamari. (http://benevolab.org) BenevoLab is an organisation supported by BNP Paribas Fortis that offers everyone the opportunity to volunteer their skills to MicroFinance Institutions (MFI) and international NGO working on projects with a high social and economic impact. In my office, I work constantly with volunteers supporting our customers and agency so I thought to myself why not take a short time off and take on the challenge to volunteer myself?
BenevoLab send me different missions across the world and I applied for a mission in Gisenyi, Rwanda. I had never been to East Africa and I have been dying to go for the longest. I was beyond happy to find out that the Rwandese organisation had selected my CV versus someone with +25 years of experience. They had written me an email that they were delighted to have my expertise due to the fact I had already set up a microfinance branch.
Ten years of hard work living, studying and working in Brussels, Antwerp, Beaumont, Monrovia, Houston, Nashik, Pune, Sevilla, Lagos, Rotterdam, Paris, Lissabon, Abuja, Port Harcourt while raising my kid; I am now going to Kigali, Gisenyi Rwanda for a short time!
The mission/project is to develop a strategic plan for L’Union des cooperatives Théicoles de la Crete Congo Nil, UCTCCN and proposing a framework for setting up a microfinance institution.