When she was just 17 years old, Claudine Mushimiyimana became pregnant and dropped out of school. She was living with her unemployed mother in a small town in Rwanda, and she struggled to keep her life together and take care of her child. “I was desperate and thought that my life would never get better,” recalls Claudine.
Then, in late 2020, Claudine enrolled in the Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe (DREAMS) Program through a USAID activity called ACHIEVE. She received mentoring, sexual and reproductive health education, training on gender-based violence, life skills and vocational training. “This was a wakeup call for me. Before joining the project, I was going through a lot, unable to provide for my child and myself,” Claudine says, thinking back to the days when her future looked hopeless.
While in the program, Claudine chose to join a tailoring training. After graduation, she did an internship, and then decided to open a business partnering with two other beneficiaries from the same program. They rented a small space with a loan from their savings and lending group, and opened a shop using the business start-up kits they received upon graduation from the project: sewing machines, irons, threads, needles, and scissors. With their dedication and hard work, these DREAMS business women grew their service offering to include tailoring classes to other young women in their neighborhood, and refer customers to a dry cleaning service offered by another fellow women entrepreneur.
Today, Claudine feels empowered, and speaks with confidence about her life and future. She’s able to make the right choices for her well-being and health, plan her finances, and share this knowledge with the other young women in her community.
Empowering girls and women is a priority woven into all USAID programming. To learn more about our work for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment across Rwanda, please click here.
