CURRENT COMMUNITY PROJECTS
Since our founding in 2016, UMWIZERO has created many ongoing community projects, including farming and tree planting programs, health education, micro-lending, installing solar panels, providing school materials, adult literacy, vocational training, a water pipe project providing clean water, and much more…
EDUCATION
Umwizero supports over 300 students — elementary- to university-level — with tuition and school materials. These students come from the poorest families where one meal a day is common. They are eager for knowledge. Windows of opportunity may open their eyes for new possibilities of hope.
Umwizero also supports adult education classes for many who have never had the opportunity to go to school in their youth due to poverty or civil unrest. Every year now, we are able to help 45 adults read and write in their Kurundi language and complete their high school level certification.
At our Ruyigi Community Center we offer computer training. Many schools in the remote areas of Burundi have no electricity or computers. Therefore locals schools schedule time for free computer training for young students. Imagine the possibilities this opens in their young minds. Others may use these computers for a small fee which pays for the internet and makes it a self-sustaining operation.
Umwizero has been able to install solar panel on community center and schools. In addition to providing power for daytime classes, the solar panels also provide electricity for after school activities for students, as well as open hours for the community in general.
VOCATIONAL PROGRAMS
Umwizero has developed a number of successful job training programs for both young people and adults. Training topics include bicycle building and repair, hair cutting and computer skills.
We also provide sewing machines to women, especially single mothers, for them to make school uniforms, dresses and feminine napkins. Along with education for the young girls, this helps keep them in school.
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Every year, Umwizero trains teams of Community Health Care Workers that travel into remote villages to teach about safe water practices, nutrition, sex education and infant/child care.
Community summer programs for school-aged children help to keep them occupied and out of trouble, while also providing information about preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs.
AGRICULTURE & LIFESTOCK
Recognizing that food is the basic necessity of life, we have made over 50 acres of land available for growing food. With our young students, we have planted over 7,000 Moringa tree seedlings. Moringa, known as the Tree of Life, provides edible leaves and pods of highly nutritional vitamins and minerals. We have also grown and distributed over 35,500 various fruit trees, providing additional diet options. Everything is freely given to the local people.
Umwizero started a community program for raising and distributing livestock, including chickens, pigs and goats, which then generate organic manure to distribute to farmers.
We have a Micro-Lending Program that enables groups of up to 25 people to borrow funds to start their own farming projects. These groups meet weekly to help each other troubleshoot their challenges and repay portions of their loans so that other groups can participate in the program.
Harvest time is a time of celebration now, as crops of potato, casava, onion, beans, coffee and other produce are bartered and sold, as well as prepared for storing during the off-season.
CLEAN WATER PROJECT
In 2021, UMWIZERO completed a 4.5-mile water pipe project that is bringing clean and safe water for the first time to over 5,400 people throughout the province of Ruyigi.
Over time, this equitable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation will improve health and education outcomes of the entire community, including a reduction in child mortality, while contributing to poverty reduction and sustainable development. The children who were usually tasked with walking miles each day to fetch water can now return to school, while schools themselves are able to provide clean water to students and teachers.
JUVENILE DETENTION PROGRAM
We run vocational training program in a juvenile detention facilities. We offer basic education classes, vocational skills such as bicycle repair, hair cutting, cultivating, animal care (goats). And we support a soccer team.
Our intention is that these young boys, aged 12-17 years old, will be better prepared for adult life in general when they are released from detention.
BE A PART OF THE PROJECTS THAT MOST TOUCH YOUR HEART
There are many ways to contribute to the amazing projects UMWIZERO is cultivating within the community every day!
You can choose to contribute to specific initiatives, sponsor students or a micro-lending group, or contribute to the germination of new projects.
Click below to find out all the ways to get involved.
UMWIZERO is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization registered in the United States and is operating as a non-profit charity in Burundi registered with the Ministry of the Interior to improve the lives of the struggling people of Burundi. © All rights reserved.