Entertaining and compelling real-life stories. The author is successful
business, real estate, and media entrepreneur Dick Kazan.
Published on August 2nd, 2016
Rift Valley Children's Village: A place of miracles.
Rift Valley Children's Village
Rift Valley is in the African nation of Tanzania, a nation in horrific
poverty. Half of Tanzania's 51 million people are children, many
abandoned, orphaned or abused.
But for the last ten years, in the Rift Valley Children's Village, some
very fortunate children have found a home and love, education and
healthcare.
This is the Children's Village story:
Founded by India Howell, an ex-Boston businesswoman, and jointly run
with Peter Leon Massy, a Tanzanian, the Village is now home to 94
children, with more to come.
It is set on nine acres, and has 90 employees, including social
workers, counselors and teachers. Some of the children are as young as
toddlers.
The whole process had begun in 1998 when India came to Tanzania to
climb Mount Kilimanjaro with one of her closest friends.
"I had no interest in Africa whatsoever, but stepped off the plane and
knew that I was home."
India felt so strongly, that after she returned to the U.S., she
applied for a job with a Tanzanian safari company. She got that job and
quickly resettled in Tanzania.
Peter, who worked for her, gave her a proposal to setup a children's
village.
But Peter's proposal was set aside. Then one of India's employees quit
his job and abandoned his 3-year-old son.
India, who was unmarried and had never had children couldn't let this
little boy struggle to survive and became his mother.
As the word spread, soon she had four children, and with time, 17
children, as village and church leaders presented orphaned or abandoned
children.
Peter's children's village proposal was activated and India began
raising the money to support it.
The Children's Village offers a quality education for these children,
and for many more, as India and Peter with village concurrence, took
over the primary and secondary schools.
Today, they educate 700 children.
To provide local jobs, they started a microfinance program which now
serves 500 clients, and to offer healthcare, established a clinic that
now serves 8,000 people.
When Peter was asked if this whole thing surprises him, he replied:
"I'm amazed, I'm astonished. I every single day, I live, I wake up,
I'm, like, wow. Did we really do all of this?".
Editor's Note: We learned of this wonderful story through the popular
U.S television show "60 Minutes." To see their 13 minute, 25 second
video http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-childrens-village/ Our quotes
in this story were taken from that video. To visit the Children's
Village website, click here. To see heartwarming 5 and 7-minute videos,
click here, andhere. To learn more about Tanzania, click here.
In the next KazanToday: A man who brings joy to strangers.
