When we talk to young people about saving often the biggest question they have is: “how can I get money to even start saving?” To explore this important question, we visited Janvière, a Ni Nyampinga who has seen the value of saving in her day to day life and got started from the little her mum gave her.In this story we talked to Janvière who is 14 years old, lives in Nyanza and started saving when she was 11 years old. She explained to Ni Nyampinga “I told my mum my idea of wanting to create something that would be beneficial in future. I wanted to save money to buy a chicken to produce eggs to sell and importantly to be able to afford school materials, and my mother agreed to help me.”

Janvière’s mother told us she was in favor of her daughter’s idea as she understood her role in supporting her to develop herself and be independent. “Janvière is courageous and hardworking. She works very hard to develop herself. She told me she wanted to start saving and when she receives her first investment will find a project to help her develop. I decided to help her and now as a result she provides herself what she needs instead of asking me for everything”.

To start, her mother agreed to give her 100 RWF every morning for 1 month to saving. Today, she saves in a group at school where she now studies. When Janvière received her first capital, she bought some hens and invested the rest in cultivating cassava. Now she sells her yield and uses this income to save further and buy whatever she needs. This allows her to be more financially independent. Janvière concluded with advice for others: there are different positive ways you can get money to save, like asking your parents for a small amount to start a simple activity like cultivating cabbage, carrots, etc.