Straight after the General Assembly Meeting of RDIS Organization held at the head quarter of Butare Anglican Diocese on 23rd February 2024; Five Talents Ubumwe Saving and Credit Association (abbreviated 5T Ubumwe) was launched by 157 founding members from the geographical boundaries RDIS members, the Anglican Dioceses of Butare, Cyangugu, Kigeme, Nyaruguru, and, Shyogwe. This launch marked a first step to register a Saving and Credit Cooperative governed by Rwanda Cooperative Agency.
This Constituent General Meeting brought together:
- The Five Bishops of the Anglican Church of Rwanda whose respective Dioceses are mentioned above, sole members of RDIS;
- The Management Team of RDIS organization;
- All members of RDIS General Assembly and BoD Meetings of RDIS Organization;
- Congregants and pastors from the Anglican Church, Business people, self-employed and employees of private and public institutions.
The meeting elected the following decision-making bodies: An Executive Committee made of 5 people, a Supervisory Committee, and a Loan Committee.
This venture aims to not only helping in supporting members of existing informal saving and credit association schemes started by either RDIS organization or its founding dioceses in the respective operation areas, but also in resolving the issues of dishonesty where some members don’t pay back when they are given loan, and hence, judiciary process is not applicable given those saving groups are not legally known.
Founding members of 5T Ubumwe proudly expressed their proudness and commitment to establish the saving and credit cooperative throughout the following steps:
- Registering 5T Ubumwe as a Saving and Credit Cooperative under the law No 024/2021 of 27/04/2021 governing cooperatives in Rwanda.
- Registering of the cooperative at under National Bank of Rwanda regulation No 65/04/2023 of 25/04/2023 governing non-deposit taking financial services providers;
- Mobilizing and sensitizing other members of the communities of existing church based saving and credit groups to join the cooperative;
- Accomplish all their responsibilities and attributions in a very professional and integrity manner.
There is a need to know that a recent assessment carried out by RDIS organization revealed that in its intervention area which is actually the same as intervention area of the member Anglican dioceses, there was 2,199 groups made of 31,580 members with a total saving of Rwf 774,637,817 by the end of 2023. The group members are mainly local congregants, church workers from church institutions like schools, health centers, clinic, hospital, and members of the communities as a whole.
RDIS as a promotor committed to facilitate the registration process from this early stage of 5T Ubumwe to the registration by Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA), and later by the National Bank of Rwanda, making a follow up and, with a common consensus with the elected bodies undertake huge tasks that might not be dealt accurately by others.