This sounds pretty audacious, I know, but I believe it to be true. As my relationship with Cheetah has developed over the last couple years I have had the opportunity to visit the villages in the Iringa District of south Central Tanzania, first hand. I have been blessed to meet the people of Iringa, Bomalang'ombe, and Ilambilole. Each of the two times I have visited these and other villages, I have been able to spend a week to 10 days each time getting to know these people and see and hear what the needs are and how the people themselves have had direct input to solving these needs.
This last Saturday morning I was part of a Conference call with Cheetah Development with some committed people here in the States and Ray Menard, the Executive Director of Cheetah. Ray joined us from the home of one of his board of directors who lives in Dar es Salaam. She is the highest ranking, non-political employee of the Bank of Tanzania. Ray had the opportunity to summarize some of the needs currently being being addressed by ongoing and developing projects:
- 40% of women and children are malnourished.
- 10% of men are malnourished.
- 40% of crops rot in the fields.
- Some villages in the Iringa District have as many as 80% of their population infected with HIV.
- Of the 80K+ water wells in Tanzania over 40K of them are broken.
- 25% of wells break in the first year with average repair cost of $50.
- 7.5 Million people in TZ don't have clean water.
- The average woman carries water 3 miles a day.
- Only bikes available are imported from China & India and last an average of 3-9 months.
Cheetah projects that are currently addressing these issues:
- Co-ops being formed in villages with 3 crops; Tea, Maize, Potatoes.
- A well repair company that is being formed to repair wells has been promised up $1 Million for repairs. Cheetah only needs to raise about $65K to fund the start-up of the company to be able to take advantage of the available funds, and get repairs underway.
- Cheetah has only sustainable system to maintain and service wells in the TZ going forward for average cost of $0.35/mo/family. Yes, that is 35 cents per family, per month. The impact of clean water on not only local village health and economies, as well as all of East Africa, is staggering.
- Cheetah bikes will weigh only 60lbs and have a payload of at least 1000lbs!
- Only sustainable Healthcare system for the local villages being developed through the co-ops, that will provide self-sustaining healthcare and health insurance for its members.
Investment dollars are desperately needed! For every dollar invested in USA, there is at least $4 of matching funds waiting to match it in Tanzania. I don’t know about you, but I have never seen this kind of opportunity to multiply our money before.
Check out www.cheetahdevelopment.org for yourself to see all that is happening in Tanzania. I truly believe the projects that Cheetah is working on and investing in today will have ramifications not only in Tanzania and East Africa, but around the world.
If you have any questions, please check out the Cheetah Development website or contact me directly.
