Josh Ruxin's
contributions on The New York Times blog, "On
the Ground."
Millennium
Villages: Mayange, Rwanda
In Rwanda,
90% of the population engages in subsistence agriculture and approximately
52% are living on $1 or less per day. Disease such as HIV infection
and malaria are high. Over 55% of Rwandan households use surface
water for cooking, cleaning, and hygiene practices. Far from an
ideal source, surface water is easily contaminated by parasites
and other pathogens. This only adds to the burden of disease and
the poverty trap. But all of this is beginning to change because
of Millennium Villages.
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.
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.
Ensuring Sustainability Through Community Leadership
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.
Meeting the Millennium Development Goals
in Rwanda
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 a year
and a half, Mayange is on the verge of transformation. 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.
View our
Interventions chart that
highlights the successes of Millennium Villages in Mayange, Rwanda
toward achieving all 8 Millennium Development Goals.
The following video by Dr. Josh Ruxin highlights some of the intervention
successes in the Mayange, Rwanda Millennium Village.
