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:
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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.
Rift Valley Children's Village
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 â€" every single day, I live, I wake up, I'm, like, wow. Did we really do all of this?".
