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 Josephs 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 its 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 contributors 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