ADOPT A VILLAGE | DINNER CLUB
A cool thing is happening in the Rufiji: land is being granted to develop ‘Dinner Clubs’ for the children and their families in villages dotting the tribe’s river! We sent out ten letters in total, containing ten proposals to Mloka Village, Mwaseni, Mibuyusaba, Msona, Mtanza, Nyaminywili, Kipugira, Kipo, Ndundunyikanza, and Ngorongo.
Click on the video to see a time-lapse overland trip on the Rufiji bush road passing through the ten villages, covering roughly 40kms and forty-thousand locals who call this remote region along the Rufiji River, ‘home’.
Our Proposal to the ten villages was simple, give us land in your village that we can develop, on it we will put the structures in place to host our regular program for the village children, and to the local families. Our program is called the ‘Dinner Club’. It touches the mind, heart, soul and strength of the smallest ones of the Rufiji; addressing their physical and spiritual poverty. FOUR of the TEN villages took us up on the offer – KIPO, KIPUGIRA, MLOKA & NGORONGO.
KIPO VILLAGE, RUFIJI
On Saturday August 21st, 2021, with the whole village of Kipo gathered, the elders and local council granted three acres of bush land, to develop and host our Dinner Club to their children. Kipo is an untouched land, where few ‘outsiders’ have been. The last census counted 1725 villagers in this community plus 466 children. It is a community of fishermen and farmers.
MLOKA VILLAGE, RUFIJI
Mloka is the village at the heart of the Rufiji, deeper in the bush than any of the other nine that line the river and wilder in terms of its regular contact with the typical African beasts. With a population census of 3744 adults and 1010 children, this number has boomed in recent days with the opening of a hydro-power project in the area and an increase in jobs, it has made Mloka a type of frontier community. On August 25th, 2021, we made an agreement with the village primary school to develop their soccer fields as part of our program.
KIPUGIRA VILLAGE, RUFIJI
Kipugira Village, along the Rufiji River, joined in partnership with us on Tuesday August 17th, 2021, when one by one the villagers signed their approval on a handful of dust-stained white sheets, granting the project three acres to develop our Dinner Club; most didn’t know how to sign their name, so they used a pen to draw ink over their thumbs and to leave their ‘mark’. With 1421 adults and 384 children, this population is a place worth investing our effort and resources.
NGORONGO VILLAGE, RUFIJI
EastARM’s Dinner Club first began in Ngorongo Village, Rufiji, in 2020, as a type of pilot-project in preparation for launching this program to other villages along the Rufiji River. There is a property in this village, on which -in part- a church is built upon, and in 2018-19, we built a parsonage for a local family on this same property. However, 3/4 of the land is unusable, as it floods annually in the wet season. We are going to reclaim this land, and return it to it’s intended and designated use.
