Esperance & Felicien’s Story
Esperance and her husband Felcien first heard of the Kula Fellowship in 2021 when Kula expanded programming into their sector in Nyamasheke.
Before joining the program, Esperance and Felicien were cultivating their coffee trees using untrained techniques, leading to a very under-producing coffee farm. With the money they earned from farming, they weren’t able to manage their finances well, spending their income unwisely and never knowing how to plan or save for the future.
After a few months of participating in the program, Esperance and Felicien began to feel “this [was] the start of a new life”. Through the financial literacy training they received, they developed a new financial system for their household, meeting regularly as a family to discuss financial decisions and outlook as well as establishing a strong practice of record keeping and budgeting for income and expenses. They also opened up a bank account and received their very first loan. Through their agronomy training, Esperance and Felicien were able to increase their coffee harvest by 240%, and by graduation had increased their income by 133% and monthly savings by 3900%, allowing them to begin building a new home for their growing family, increase their food security, and lay the groundwork for their new business.
When working together to determine a concept for a new business, Esperance drew upon hardship she endured in the past. After experiencing difficult complications during the birth of their triplets, Esperance was instructed by her doctor to consume tree tomatoes as a way to increase red blood cells and her antioxidant, vitamin C, and iron levels. From this challenge, she and Felicien chose to see opportunity – crafting a plan for a tree tomato business to support not only Esperance’s needs and other women in the community facing similar challenges, but also their community at large through agribusiness. This story and the strength of their vision made them a winner in Kula’s Business Plan Competition, and since then they have embarked on cultivating 1,000 tree tomato plants in the coming year, moving themselves and their children steadily into their vision for the future.
