The island of Idjwi has developed little economically over the span of its history.  Traditional Social structures and norms have been adhered to throughout its history.  Thus it has been preserved as a tropical paradise.  yet as Idjwi is forced into the 21st century, the people are estruggleing to survive in a world that is not as tolerant of their day to day subsistence lifestyle.

PROLASA has seen a great desire in the local villagers for a microfinance programme to aid their economic development.  Prolasa’s interest in microfinance projects is two fold:

• to provide work opportunities for the local population so that they can afford the products that they must buy from the mainland in order to live healthy lives such as soap, shoes, or medicine.
• to provide locally-manufactured products so that the island might become less dependent on products from the mainland where prices are highly volatile as a result of the constant war, political unrest, and natural disasters.

Some of the micro finance projects that are currently taking place and that are in the initial steps of being implemented on the Island of Idjwi are:

Microfinance Projects

Soap                                         Baking

Coffee                                      Fishing