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Village Projects - Mayange Millennium Village
Unlike most of rural Rwanda, where individual homesteads are scattered across the hilly landscape, Mayange has several umudugudus, or settlements, of closely spaced dwellings, which the government built to house returnees after the 1994 genocide. Nearly 14 years after the genocide, Bugesera and Rwanda as a whole are intently focused on rebuilding and reconciliation. Since beginning the project in Kagenge in December 2005, the Millennium Villages team has worked to scale up key, life-saving interventions in the surrounding area, reaching a population of 25,000 in the nation's poorest region.
A key determinant to the long term success of the Millennium Village Project, local leadership and community engagement have already generated significant changes in Mayange. Committees on agriculture, water, and health oversee improvement in these sectors, while community mobilizers act to distribute information and engage the local population.
By applying targeted, science-based interventions and maximizing community leadership and participation, the villagers of Mayange went from chronic hunger to a bumper harvest in 2006. Malaria incidence is significantly down, the health clinic is booming with patients who know they'll receive good care and treatment, and children now have electricity and a computer lab at school. In just two years, Mayange is being transformed. The Government of Rwanda recently announced its plans to scale the Millennium Villages project to all 30 districts under its Vision 2020-Umurenge initiative, part of the national development strategy. Each district has designated its neediest sector for Millennium Village interventions, thereby taking the project to unprecedented scale.
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The
Millennium Village cluster in Rwanda is located in Mayange, a sector
of Bugesera District located about 25 miles south of the capital,
Kigali. In a country known as the “pays des milles collines”
(“land of 1,000 hills”), the terrain around Mayange is
flatter and drier than most of Rwanda. The area suffers from sporadic
rainfall and declining soil fertility, leading to endemic poverty,
illness, and a lack of economic opportunity. The project began working
with an initial 5,000 people in Kagenge, one of Mayange's five subdivisions,
or cells as they are referred to in Rwanda, in early 2006. The population
was facing impending famine because of failing rains and a poor
harvest the year before, and the health center was severely lacking
in staff, medicines, equipment, and supplies, and had no electricity
or running water. Copyright © 2008 Millennium Congregation