The Luhimba Project:
Background
by Michael Carey

LUHIMBA is a village in rural southern Tanzania, East Africa. It currently has a population of approx 3500 villagers who live in scattered clusters of dwellings. Their houses are of two main types - mud huts with grass roofs, or constructions of home-produced bricks with corrugated sheet roofing. There is no mains electricity or piped water to the village. The only electricity is provided by some solar panels on the roof of the dispensary to run some lights and a refrigerator for medicinal drugs. There is also a panel on each of the two primary schools. Otherwise lighting is by oil lamps. The villagers get water from pumps.

Life expectancy in the village is about 50 years, men living longer. There are no vehicles apart from some bicycles and there is only one small shop which sells basics, such as soap. The villagers earn their living from the land.

In 1984 a project was started by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers to improve the standard of living and quality of life of the villagers in a sustainable way. Luhimba had been selected by the Britain Tanzania Society on the basis of the quality of the local leadership and the fact that Luhimba was in the fertile Ruvuma region which was just being opened up to the rest of Tanzania by the Songea - Dar es Salaam road.

My late wife Angela and I visited the village to ascertain what were the perceived needs and to find out how we could help them to get what they wanted and not what we thought that they ought to have. In those days Luhimba was very deprived and there was extreme poverty.

Unprotected surface water was freely drunk with consequent high rates of water borne disease particularly amongst children.
Subsequent help concentrated on Education, Health, Clean Water, Agriculture and Engineering.

Following an initial grant of £12000 things started to improve slowly with the help of other fund raising. From those early days the approach has been that we ask the villagers what they want and work with them to prioritise their needs. Not once have we imposed western Ideas on them. In this way every aspect of the project is within their own culture and understanding.

In 1993 Comic Relief agreed to support the project over a five year period, ending on 5 April 1998. During this time the project has moved forward in leaps and bounds.

The Luhimba Project is currently run by a small group of volunteers, led by British teacher and school head Paul Temple in partnership with Dr Strato Paul Mosha who lives in Dar es Salaam and oversees each aspect of the project.