Our
Work with Millennium Villages
Millennium
Congregation has partnered with the Millennium Villages
Project as Millennium Villages are delivering the most comprehensive
and holistic approach to ending extreme poverty in sub-Saharan
Africa. The
Millennium Villages are demonstrating that a comprehensive package
of practical, low-cost interventions in agriculture, health,
education, and infrastructure are achieving all eight of
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)* simultaneously
and providing the solid foundation for self-sustaining development.
Interventions
are driven by implementing practical solutions like providing
high-yield seeds, fertilizers, medicines, bed nets, drinking
wells, and building school rooms and clinics that are effectively
ending extreme poverty and building sustainable communities.
In over
80 Millennium Villages, across sub-Saharan Africa, more than
400,000 Africans are participating in implementing the poverty-ending
interventions that are breaking the poverty trap and allowing
them to get on the "ladder of sustainable development." Millennium
Villages are daily demonstrating that the end of poverty is
not only possible; it is happening.
Millennium
Congregation is currently focusing its efforts on supporting
Millennium Villages in Rwanda. We are very excited about
this partnership as there is a deep commitment to ending extreme
poverty and building a sustainable future in Rwanda. The world
knows of the 1994 genocide, but is less aware of how Rwanda
has been working at building a nation, that was so torn by violence
and death, as a place of peace, stability, and prosperity for
all Rwandans. The work of reconciliation has been central in
the building of the new Rwanda and Millennium Villages are playing
a crucial role in its success (see the
Associate Press story "Rwanda
Genocide Victims Killers Meet" ).
Today, Rwanda
is a stable and peaceful nation and the government and people
of Rwanda are deeply committed to ending poverty and disease
through accountable and transparent projects such as Millennium
Villages. In fact, Millennium Villages in Rwanda have been so
succesful that the government of Rwanda announced in early 2007
that the Millennium Village Project will be the model for
a nationwide development plan, Vision 2020-Umurenge.
The government and people of Rwanda contribute what they can
to their own development, but Rwanda is a very poor nation and
Rwandans suffer greatly from the scourges of extreme poverty
and disease. Rwanda needs our help to lift themselves out of
extreme poverty.
The Mayange,
Rwanda Millennium Village cluster currently has five villages
(5,000 people in each village) in need of funding. Millennium
Congregation is working to fund those villages and help leverage
those successes as part of the national scale-up of Millennium
Villages throughout Rwanda.
We
hope that your congregation will consider pledging support to
ending extreme poverty by becoming a Millennium Congregation
and assisting Rwanda in becoming Africa's first Millennium Nation.
Join
us in responding through faith
to end extreme poverty.
*The
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
- Eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve
universal primary education
- Promote
gender equality and empower women
- Reduce
child mortality
- Improve
maternal health
- Combat
HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Ensure
environmental sustainability
- A
global partnership for development
