Louise Ruhr

Louise Ruhr carries a stylish handbag, made overseas and possessed by only a handful of women worldwide. Yet, nowhere on it will you find a designer label. The bag’s blue and red nylon cords were woven in a Rwandan refugee camp, its artisans trained in an American Refugee Committee program that largely owes its existence to Ruhr.

When Ruhr became active with ARC’s domestic volunteer wing in 2002, she was a successful marketing professional with a Harvard MBA and deep roots in the Twin Cities business community. She had previously volunteered for several organizations, including the Schubert Club, the Center for Victims of Torture, Courage Center, and the American Lung Association, but says she first began to see herself as a volunteer when she started working with ARC.

In 2004, when she became a member of ARC’s board of directors, she made a visit to a Rwandan camp where ARC assists refugees from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. There she was introduced to a small income-generation program offering training and microgrants to camp residents hoping to start new businesses. “I was very taken with it,” says Ruhr. “You could see how this program had potential to aid the whole camp.”

Ruhr was disappointed, then, when the $35,000 federal grant that funded the program was cut in 2005. “I just decided that was unacceptable,” she recalls. “I said, ‘I’ll raise it somehow.’ ” Ruhr raised $20,000 in private donations and foundation grants to keep the program alive in 2005. This year, her fundraising has yielded almost twice that amount, due to foundation grants.

Moreover, Ruhr has followed up her initial visit with several multimonth trips to refugee camps in the West African nation, during which she assists full-time staff providing materials, skills, and business counseling to enterprising residents. She speaks proudly of groups of entrepreneurs who have banded together to sell homemade soaps or open a coffee shop and of the pride and self-sufficiency it brings to the refugee community.

“The money is great,” Ruhr explains, “but most of what’s been gained is immaterial.”