The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz Page B
Authors: Jacqueline Novogratz
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the grapevine that the microfinance institution was in serious financial trouble. A year after that, a group of Kenyan women, including several of the board members, came to its rescue, working closely with foundations, restructuring the board, and putting the organization back on its feet-through the power of local ownership.
Twenty years later, I met with one of those women, who told me the organization now serves more than 100,000 women across Kenya and is one of the most highly regarded institutions for the poor in the country. Back in 1987, I couldn't help but feel devastated. Now I understand that it can take years for a new kind of organization to get on its feet and a few years after that for it to walk. The key is to find local leaders who own the dream and will make it happen.
ABOUT A MONTH LATER after I'd done the project with the Kenyan organization, Veronique, the woman I had met at the conference for women and credit, walked into my office in Nairobi. She hadn't called in advance, but had simply shown up.
"I am in Nairobi for meetings and hoped you would be here," she said. "In Rwanda, we have been talking about you and hoping you might help us to study whether it makes sense to start a credit program for women and how we could move forward if we decided to do so."
I didn't hesitate. Though I wasn't exactly sure what she wanted me to do, the invitation was clear. Already, our interaction felt different, unclouded and concrete. I felt a surge of gratitude and a chance to prove myself. I told her I'd be there that same month.
She promised to send me the terms by which I could be hired. When I asked how long I would need to stay, she looked at me, drew a breath, and said, "Three weeks."
It sounded like heaven.
For the next week, I could barely sleep, but I managed to read a bit about Rwanda, pack a small bag, and get myself to the airport. I knew I would not be returning to Nairobi for a while, though I kept my apartment there. I was determined to stay in Rwanda until I had made something happen.
CHAPTER 3
CONTEXT MATTERS
"Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path."
-LU XUN
he 2-hour flight from Nairobi to Kigali begins over the wide-open expanse of the Kenyan savanna and ends among the mountains of Rwanda. I stared out of the plane's window, enraptured by Africa's shifting landscape, repeating the capital city's simple, lyrical, and lovely name to myself: Kigali, Ki-ga-li. It rolled off my tongue like the hills that surround it. Kigali-it could be a woman's name. I liked the sound of it.
We flew through a full blue-gray sky hovering over a tremendous charcoal river that coiled through undulating hills like a giant cobra in the grass. The view was breathtaking. Every inch of land was cultivated in neat squares of banana, sorghum, maize, coffee, and tea patched together by red dirt roads, like an enormous quilt in shades of green draped over the land.
We landed at Kigali's sleepy airport, which had one main terminal shaped like a square crown of pale yellow pillars bent and reaching outward, topped with a flat burnt-sienna roof. Scores of people stood on the observation deck, waving eagerly at the arriving passengers. In fact, the plane had so few people on it that I'm sure there were more waiting than coming. I looked up to see who might be standing there, though I knew I wouldn't recognize a soul.
With so few of us disembarking, it took only about 5 minutes to reach the baggage belt, where a tall driver named Boniface in a blue United Nations (UN) uniform was waiting to take me to the UNICEF office. He was dark-skinned, with a broad nose and a wide, pockmarked, happy face that was at once boyish and manly. He spoke French with a heavy, lilting, singsong African accent that lifted the end of nearly every phrase.
"What do you know about Rwanda?" he asked. Before I could answer, he jumped in: "You should try to
Twenty years later, I met with one of those women, who told me the organization now serves more than 100,000 women across Kenya and is one of the most highly regarded institutions for the poor in the country. Back in 1987, I couldn't help but feel devastated. Now I understand that it can take years for a new kind of organization to get on its feet and a few years after that for it to walk. The key is to find local leaders who own the dream and will make it happen.
ABOUT A MONTH LATER after I'd done the project with the Kenyan organization, Veronique, the woman I had met at the conference for women and credit, walked into my office in Nairobi. She hadn't called in advance, but had simply shown up.
"I am in Nairobi for meetings and hoped you would be here," she said. "In Rwanda, we have been talking about you and hoping you might help us to study whether it makes sense to start a credit program for women and how we could move forward if we decided to do so."
I didn't hesitate. Though I wasn't exactly sure what she wanted me to do, the invitation was clear. Already, our interaction felt different, unclouded and concrete. I felt a surge of gratitude and a chance to prove myself. I told her I'd be there that same month.
She promised to send me the terms by which I could be hired. When I asked how long I would need to stay, she looked at me, drew a breath, and said, "Three weeks."
It sounded like heaven.
For the next week, I could barely sleep, but I managed to read a bit about Rwanda, pack a small bag, and get myself to the airport. I knew I would not be returning to Nairobi for a while, though I kept my apartment there. I was determined to stay in Rwanda until I had made something happen.
CHAPTER 3
CONTEXT MATTERS
"Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path."
-LU XUN
he 2-hour flight from Nairobi to Kigali begins over the wide-open expanse of the Kenyan savanna and ends among the mountains of Rwanda. I stared out of the plane's window, enraptured by Africa's shifting landscape, repeating the capital city's simple, lyrical, and lovely name to myself: Kigali, Ki-ga-li. It rolled off my tongue like the hills that surround it. Kigali-it could be a woman's name. I liked the sound of it.
We flew through a full blue-gray sky hovering over a tremendous charcoal river that coiled through undulating hills like a giant cobra in the grass. The view was breathtaking. Every inch of land was cultivated in neat squares of banana, sorghum, maize, coffee, and tea patched together by red dirt roads, like an enormous quilt in shades of green draped over the land.
We landed at Kigali's sleepy airport, which had one main terminal shaped like a square crown of pale yellow pillars bent and reaching outward, topped with a flat burnt-sienna roof. Scores of people stood on the observation deck, waving eagerly at the arriving passengers. In fact, the plane had so few people on it that I'm sure there were more waiting than coming. I looked up to see who might be standing there, though I knew I wouldn't recognize a soul.
With so few of us disembarking, it took only about 5 minutes to reach the baggage belt, where a tall driver named Boniface in a blue United Nations (UN) uniform was waiting to take me to the UNICEF office. He was dark-skinned, with a broad nose and a wide, pockmarked, happy face that was at once boyish and manly. He spoke French with a heavy, lilting, singsong African accent that lifted the end of nearly every phrase.
"What do you know about Rwanda?" he asked. Before I could answer, he jumped in: "You should try to
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