Youth Caring for the Elderly Poor with Love
 

About The Village of Angels-Tanzania

our home

Our organization is located in the Ngara District, the northwestern corner of Tanzania, near Lake Victoria. It borders with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. 

Our headquarters are in Kafua, 10 kms from Benaco and 30 kms from the Rwandan border.

This is a remote area whose inhabitants survive on subsistence agriculture. This area, sadly, is renowned for the great influx of refugees from the devastating Rwanda genocide of  1995.

Our Campus

The center of our operations is in a 16-acre campus made available by the Franciscan Sisters of St. Bernadette (FSSB). The area provides ample farmland, irrigated by two water wells with solar-powered pumps, and three water tanks. It consists of:

  • Rauscher Hall: a multi-purpose building with a training classroom / meeting room, and a warehouse

  • a chicken farm and a bee-house

  • a guest house for visitors, with annexed Chapel

  • a few utility huts

Tanzania is in Eastern Africa.

Tanzania is in Eastern Africa.

The red arrow points to our headquarters, close to the Rwanda border.

 
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Meet Sister Dativa

Sr. Dativa Mukebita, FSSB, is the Founder and the Executive Director of The Village Angels of Tanzania. She is a Franciscan Sister of St. Bernadette, a Roman Catholic religious community that promotes the universal Franciscan spirit of helping the needy in their hospitals, schools, orphanages and outreach programs such as The Village Angels of Tanzania.

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WHAT INSPIRED SISTER DATIVA

An elderly woman living in a small northwestern Tanzanian village fell and broke her hip. She had been lying on the floor of her hut for three days without food or water when her neighbor found her. He brought her on his bicycle to the local dispensary. On the way, she died.

When Sister Dativa heard this story she was heartbroken, not because the old woman had died, but because of how she died. It sparked an idea in her mind to build a support network for the isolated elderly poor. In 2014, this concept became known as The Village Angels of Tanzania. The program was approved and endorsed by the leadership of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Bernadette.

“LET US DO JUST A LITTLE TO EASE THE SUFFERING OF POOR PEOPLE.”
— SR. DATIVA MUKEBITA, FSSB, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR OF THE VILLAGE ANGELS OF TANZANIA®
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Meet our YouthS

The Village Angels program serves two acutely underserved groups: forsaken elders and at-risk unemployed young people in Northwestern Tanzania. We employ and train these youths to cultivate and deliver food, supplies, minimum health care and house repairs to the elders of our program. Most importantly, our youths provide companionship to a group of people who would otherwise be alone most of the time.

Our youths learn to farm our land, grow chickens, harvest honey, sew and weave. Most of their products are supplied to our elders. Some are also sold to help make the program more self sufficient.

THESE ARE THE YOUTHS OF OUR PROGRAM

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Meet our Elders

We currently serve the needs of 80 elders. They currently range in age from 60 to 102, and two thirds are women. They are all very poor and live alone in isolated mud huts in the middle of the bush. We provide them with weekly food and water deliveries and with supplies, to help make their life easier.

These are the elders in our program