Millennium Villages Blog

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015

Dertu MVP students shine in 2010 National exam

With a little more than 700 students, Dertu's primary school, set in this remote pastoralist village in arid Northern Kenya, was certainly not expecting to be in the news. So the joy and pride were big when a photo of one of its students was featured in a daily newspaper: Mohamed Amin Abdishukri scored the highest marks in North Eastern province at the 2010 Kenya . . . [more]

Education, no matter the cost

'I have always had it in my heart that every child needs and deserves an education, but I previously had no way to realise that dream,' explains Kambunda Evarist, founder and head teacher of St. Evarist Primary School in Ruhiira. Back in 2004, he decided to pool all the resources he had to establish a first rate primary school in his home community. St.Evarist, a private school, caters for families who can . . . [more]

Nineteen students from Mbola receive a secondary school scholarship

Nineteen students from Mbola Millennium Village, in Uyui district in Tanzania, have been awarded secondary school scholarships from the Connect To Learn program. The scholarship recipients are attending local schools supported by Connect To Learn with mobile broadband technology investments in order to provide these students, their classmates and their teachers with access to quality teaching and learning resources. "Today we are here to celebrate your hard work. These . . . [more]

Empowering women: the force behind Ruhiira’s best restaurant

Lunch time in Ruhiira? Look no further. 'Fang Fang' is the place to go for yummy matooke (bananas) and beans. The woman behind this thriving micro-business is Tumushabe Boneconcila, whose entrepreneurial spirit is doing much to both improve the quality of her own life and radically shake up ideas of traditional gender roles in the community. Before the arrival of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) in 2006, Boneconcila had begun building what would become Fang Fang and . . . [more]

Ruhiira to Connecticut, just a mouse-click away

Kabagambe Fudier, head of ICT programs at Omwicwamba Primary School in Ruhiira, is truly an embodiment of what the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is all about: by utilising the tools and skills provided by the project, he has created change both in his personal and professional life. A powerhouse of energy and enthusiasm, his finger crushing handshake is an indicator of the strength which he deployed in order to transform learning . . . [more]

The Community Resource Centre: Ruhiira’s window on the world

Not long ago, next to the Ruhiira Health Centre was a relatively unassuming looking building surrounded by scattered building blocks and cast in the shadow of a towering radio mast which usually had the ICT facilitator Elly Nankunda tinkering at the top of it. Come July 2010, however, and the place was unrecognisable, transformed into a Community Resource Centre (CRC) which Jeffrey Sachs deemed to be 'the first of its kind in . . . [more]

Malawian Memoir

Since 2007 the Millennium Villages Project has been working in Gumulira, Malawi. This summer I was given the unique opportunity to work in the village, directly administering an agricultural survey to the farmers to determine the scalability and adaptability of our initiatives within this village cluster. The warm hospitality and obtuse level of respect and gratitude that I experienced . . . [more]

Millennium Promise Japan: Using sport to connect schoolchildren in Japan and Uganda

Through sports, we can connect without words, and it is upon this belief that Japan-based NGO Amitie was founded, and they use this idea as a means of realising their vision of promoting development and cross-cultural understanding. The main reason for Amitie's visit week was for them to inspect the Ryamiyonga Primary School which is due to soon be . . . [more]

Millennium Promise Japan: Connecting Japan and Uganda through Secondary Education Partnerships

Japan can feel like a very long way from Africa, and after 21 hours on a plane and a few delayed connections, this feeling certainly rung true for the delegation from Millennium Promise Japan who recently paid a visit to the Ruhiira Millennium Village in Uganda. And yet connection . . . [more]

Kenyan Ministry of Education delegation impressed with Sauri’s school meals program

It is possible! That was the key message from Margaret Ndanyi, the Director of the school health, nutrition and meals Unit at the Kenya Ministry of Education, after touring schools in the Sauri Millennium Villages Project. She was there to experience firsthand the School Health, Nutrition and Meals programs supported by the Project in the Gem . . . [more]

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