MicroJointVentures Annual Report 2014

The year just gone (May 1 2013-April 30 2014) has been quite disappointing, albeit with some

encouraging news now appearing. It must be noted that some of these disappointing results pale into

relative insignificance when placed in their human context. In March, flooding resulted in around 150

deaths in Bujumbura due to mudslides. This same flooding took away a large part of the coffee which

had been purchased at Munyinya, severely depleting their balance sheet. Our concern should rightly

be with the welfare of the people at this point. After hearing of the flooding and deaths (in April), we

sent an additional $1000 to expand the work at Munyinya, and replace the capital that had been lost.

I was pleased that our connections enabled us to be of some assistance at such a time. The floods

also led to large losses at Bugendana (about half the capital was lost)

At a number of other locations, the news was bad for other reasons. At Murore, there was a failure

to recover funds from our employee who stole them. He ran away. At Gitega, a whole year was

wasted with nothing done. Bikobe have had a very large supply of capital for a long time, and have

done far too little with it (especially in recent times). Ruyigi admit that their project has failed. Gasave

has declared they are no longer interested in working with us on a MicroJointVenture.

As a result of these disappointments, and at the recommendation of our project manager, Aime

Joseph, we have commenced seeking to reclaim the funds from these five churches, so that we can

employ the funds effectively at other churches. The United Methodist Bishop Justin Nzoyisaba has

been very helpful in putting his foot down so that this could happen (at least to some extent). At the

time of writing, we have reclaimed BIF 593000 from Murore, and we should shortly receive BIF

2000000 from Bikobe.

I have to confess, this has fallen well short of my hopes and expectations three or so years ago when

the majority of these joint ventures were set up. Nonetheless, I have optimism in this: The church

which Aime Joseph has selected have done much better than the ones I selected (before he came on

as manager). This gives me heart that we will have more success as we start new projects with the

returned funds.

One of Aime Joseph’s first recommendations was that Nyamutetema Parish receive additional

funding. This has proven to be a wise move. Some of the report is worth repeating: ‘The parish fellows

have increased from 700 to 750 since the partnership through business and prayers […] The business

started on September 2011, with funds release of 1,200,000 BIF […] After one year of honey business

the profit has been of 700 000BIF. The Nyamutetema parish received additional funds […]on

September 2013. These funds were 1,200,000 BIF. The total amount increased from 1,900,000 BIF to

3,100,000. . On the harvesting period we hope to raise a profit that we can estimate to 1,000,000BIF

or higher than. The harvesting time is on July, August and September.’

I am certainly looking forward to hearing how their harvest went! And it’s also encouraging to hear

them credit some of the growth in their congregation to their partnership with MicroJointVentures.

Value of Each Contributors’ Share

With the need to reclaim so many of the funds from churches, it is at present impossible to estimate

the value of each contributor’s share of the work.

Deductions

During the period, I send $510 to Aime Joseph to help him visit the churches, and support him in his

work on our behalf. At no time have I personally taken any money for the work in overseeing the

projects.

Conclusion

While much has gone wrong over the last few years, I remain optimistic that our involvement has

helped the churches and the people of Burundi. I am hopeful that our repositioning of funds over the

next year will see considerable fruit.

Mike Russell

October 2014