Where we are off to next!

We are off to Mawene Tanzania in September, 2008. This village sits in between two other villages who have already received assistance from us. We received reports that there is much starvation happening in Mawene so we bumped them up to the top of our list. We will also be reevaluating our health study in Kikwe, which we began in January. We are also meeting with the Millennium Promise and the UNDP for an assessment of our next project with them, as well as meeting with banks in Tanzania to begin our micro finance loan program for water harvesting.

Marrying Efforts with the Rotary Arusha, Tanzania      

In Tanzania, we came across story after story of failed bore hole projects, wells that had gone dry and government projects that were half the size of ours that took 5 years to complete and cost 3 times the amount of money. We contacted the local Rotary foundation leader, the current Rotary president and the president elect for the city of Arusha. After a tour of the project, they were so impressed with the work that they committed to sponsoring 5 projects in the area, beginning in July. Our first project together will be a roof catchment system with Slow Sand Filter on a school that educates 1200 children. It is located in the village of Tengeru and sits right next to the district hospital. The hospital has a bore well that has run dry. Our grant is finally coming through for this project and it is set to be started in December, 2008    

Marrying Efforts with the Millennium Promise   

In August of 2007, we partnered with the UNDP and the Millennium Promise for 3 village projects in the UN’s sustainable village of Ruhiira, Uganda.  It was such a success that we are off in September to assess Mbola, Tanzania, another Millennium Village.

Marrying Efforts with Engineers without Borders

After speaking at the National Conference in Seattle in March, 2008, we were flooded with emails from EWB groups. We are currently working with several chapters to help include Rain Water Harvesting into their solutions. We are partnering with a professional chapter in Washington on a project we proposed in Rangaa, Tanzania at the end of this year.

If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.

~ Marian Wright Edelman