Rwanda and It's Opportunities

Hi Friends,

It’s Monday morning here in Rwanda, 5:30 am. Liz Uible and I are out here with an investment team of five, looking at possibilities. Our highlight was running 4 days of seminars on business skills with the Women of Parliament, followed by training of 40 high level entrepreneurs, which has helped us gauge the level of expertise and to meet potential partners.

Here’s a summary of activities including Micro-Lending, Real Estate Potential, interest from outsiders, other opportunities including quarries and venture capitol, and access to decision makers.

MICRO LENDING
Liz just left with the driver for a day at Lake Kivu, to visit our Micro Lending coffee co-op recipients, who will use the small loans for the women to start businesses between the coffee harvest seasons. Madeleine Nichols and I will see the US Ambassador at 10 am to brief him on our trainings with the women in Parliament and the 2 day conference we ran for women entrepreneurs. Tomorrow we’ll all get to meet the recipients of the Micro Loans to HIV women, through Dr Immaculee. They are starting their 5 day training on how to start up business. Many are illiterate, but they are required to present a profit and loss plan – verbally, if not in writing. They are also taught simple math and reading during the training, as well as nutrition and how to open a bank account.

The part I admire is that Dr. Immaculee has set the loans up in such a way that they have support groups of 10 women amongst themselves – rather like our mastermind groups, except that in addition they are required to co-sign for each other in order to get the loan. That means that during the training, they have to come to know and trust each other and also assess whether each member of their circle has learned enough to be qualified to receive the loan. The initial challenge is that some don’t understand the concept of a loan and it’s repayment, and think at first that it might be a grant or gift. In her program, Dr Immaculee explains the concept of profit, and that they are free to spend their profit on school clothes for the children, but the loan itself must be used for the business.

REAL ESTATE
I had dinner last night with Dr. Immaculee and her husband Sandrali. He’s a well know architect here, having designed the genocide memorial, as well as public and private buildings. We drove around the city first to see his architecture, then eat at a new Chinese restaurant near our rented home in the prestigious Kiovu area, near the American Embassy. One of the houses he built is about 7000 square feet and is along a beautiful curving road along a river, across from a park and lake. I’d not seen this on my last trip, and the curving street and gorgeous flowers made me think I was in Philadelphia for a moment. I asked the prices of houses there, and they run $700 per square meter. Since a meter is longer than a yard, a quick mathematical conversion comes up with $70 per quare foot. That still makes a 5000 square foot house cost close about $350,000. (I previously had a conversion error here, but 350,000 is the correct price.) Of course as you come down the scale in neighborhoods, the cost per square foot drops. A high end home, in a different area with nice views can be built for $500 per square foot.

Housing here for medium and low end is in demand. Yesterday we went out with staff from the Mayor of Kigali’s office to see the new area being built which incorporates low, medium and high end homes. There will be 5000 new homes when complete.

The low end homes have 2 bedrooms, a living room. The whole home measuring about 15 feet by 15 feet. That makes each bedroom about 7 feet by 7 feet, but I might be exaggerating on the high side. Each home has a cement slab of about 15 ft by 7 feet connecting it to an out building housing a toilet room, and shower room and a kitchen. The kitchen measuring about 5 feet by 5 feet. Each home will have a wooden fence separating it from it’s neighbor, which stands about 8 feet away from each other. The people who will be housed here will be relocated from the slum areas of the capitol, which is about 6 miles away.

At first the people were upset about being re-housed, but the city has worked long and hard they tell us to be sensitive to the needs. They are letting groups of neighbors move together and still be neighbors. They are also forming co-operatives so that the new housing area can also provide livelihood opportunities. The beauty of the newness and view compares favorably to the slum homes, so folks think it will work.

The interesting part for me was the location and the clustering of the housing. The site they chose is on a hill, and one of the most beautiful views of the city. Secondly, the low cost housing is situated such that it circles the hill along the lower rim. Directly above it will be medium cost housing in the $30,000 plus range, and above it will be the high end homes on the hill top. We asked questions about the clustering, whether schools would be integrated, what they anticipated from the social mix, and obviously they had thought it through thoroughly.

INTEREST IN RWANDA FROM OUTSIDERS
There seems to be a lot of faith in Rwanda now. The Americans are building a huge regional Embassy here, the Christian Family network is building a state of the art broadcasting center with a 300 seat auditorium on the hilltop (also designed by Sandrali,) the Chinese are in here building roads and infrastructure, the Swiss President was visiting last week – and it seems that a head of state has been here every month in 2007 which is an escalation of interest. We’ve met may expats living here and they all seem quite happy. They report a shortage of some goods by our standards, but fresh food is not a problem.

I met an American who is the head of the major hospital and he says that the President wants him to pull out every stop to make it a first class facility. The President, and the Parliament which is 49% female, pounce on corruption at every turn, and the streets are reported by many to be among the safest in the world.

OTHER INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Several investment projects have caught our attention. One is housing development, including roads and infrastructure. Another are a quarries. Another is Venture Capitol. If you have expertise in these areas and would like to start a dialogue with us, send us an email. Or you can call me on my cell phone here. My number is 011-250-0878-9774. Remember please that Noon in Los Angeles is 9 pm here. So best to call before Noon LA time or 3pm Eastern. We’re leaving Thursday, so call us asap if you have specific questions, or email me at ChristineHarvey@WomenForWealth.com.

ACCESS TO DECISION MAKERS
One of the delights in working here is the access to people that we’ve created. We’ve gone out of our way to host dinner parties here at our rented home, to throw parties and to have informal get togethers. Decision makers are still keen to get to know foreign investors and the government has made attempts to make it attractive. Investor bringing in over $250,000 do so tax free we are told. There are agencies who help with ‘one stop shopping’ for foreign investors, answering all questions and facilitating the process.

People on all levels are a delight to work with. Their negotiation skills are good too. The cleaning lady we hired for example, had negotiation skills that would make even David Finkel of Maui Millionaires proud. The private party we hired the car from were the same. So, as you see, entrepreneurship is ripe here! Every event you attend here is full of decision makers. Reverend Rick Warren was here from Saddleback Church and The Purpose Driven Life, and the room was teeming with government and business leaders keen to make Rwanda everything it can be. The same is true at every turn.

Before closing I want to give thanks to our investment team who accompanied us here – Madeleine Nichols of New York – attorney and real estate investor, Christina Willings of Canada – award winning film producer, Connie Kadansky of Phoenix AZ – sales and business trainer, of course Liz Uible, Co-Founder of WomenForWealth.com, business woman and real estate investor, and then there is me, Christine Harvey of Tucson AZ, real estate investor, author, business trainer and business woman.

I hope this gives you a feel for life here, the opportunity here and the fun we’ve had exploring the country and the people! We feel we’ve made some life long friends, and have been moved to new levels of global and human understanding.


Much love,
Chrisitne Harvey
Co-Founder, WomenForWealth.com