Maria John Kwanga is a Unite Scholar. She is picture above (right) with her parents and two of her brothers working their family’s shamba (small farm). Maria and her family are why, in part, we are launching the Unite Food Program.
Whether it be her high-pitched, sweet, sing-song voice, her sparkling eyes and wide smile, her extraordinary faith (“I thank God I woke up this morning” is how she starts most conversations) or her huge heart (“I love you soooo very much” is how she ends most conversations), Maria John Kwanga, 21, is one of the brightest, most lovely and endearing young women anyone could ever have the pleasure of meeting. As a fully-sponsored Unite Scholar, Maria John is currently performing extremely well in Form 5 at the high-quality government Mtwara Girls Secondary School. She is a leader among her peers, guiding more than 100 students in the school’s Unite Club, through which Unite provides leadership training, career preparedness workshops, and exposure to a global network of powerful change agents through our Unite Passion Project. Maria John’s teachers report that she is highly motivated, empathetic, disciplined, and curious. Unite is challenging Maria John, and all of our 40 Unite Scholars, to work hard, dream big, think creatively, question the status quo, and do everything necessary to become the leaders of tomorrow.
Then Maria John goes home... to her large, loving, and extended family in the extremely rural and near inaccessible Makulu village in Dodoma, Tanzania, and the situation is dire. Her family lives in a hand-made earthen structure, which is currently eroding. (Unite is raising money to have it rebuilt.) Her parents, siblings, and many extended relatives survive in this harsh, arid environment by engaging in daily backbreaking labor -- preparing the earth, planting, tending, and harvesting-by-hand subsistence and cash crops. With no means to safely store food or protect their harvest from spoilage or pests, small-scale farmers like Maria John’s family have little choice but to sell at depressed market prices their only possession of value. Too often, what they earn is not enough to buy seeds for the next season, pay school fees, cover the cost of any kind of healthcare, or even prevent their families from going hungry before the next season, the most vulnerable time being between December and March when food prices skyrocket.
So, it is no surprise that when Maria is not in school, she spends her days hauling water and working in the shamba. There is little time for anything else. The situation is much the same for the near 30 million Tanzanians who survive on less than $1.9 a day.* This is a herculean problem with no quick or easy solution, but one that must be addressed in any and all ways possible.
Our response to this crisis? The Unite Food Program.
For the past few months, our Unite teams in America and Tanzania have been working in partnership with Tanzanian entrepreneur Upendo Kiondo and environmental scientist Clara Wilson Ngowi to launch the new social enterprise Unite Food Program (UFP), which is designed to empower small-scale farmers with a means of storage and a secure market for their crops at fair market prices as well as to provide organic, healthy, tasty, and affordable staple food options to all Tanzanian people. We have secured a partnership with A to Z Textile Mills Limited to provide UFP partner farmers with advanced technology—multi-layered hermetically sealed, pest resistant grain storage bags—which allows UFP to safely store freshly harvested crops without spoilage for more than a year. Additionally, we have opened, to date, one UFP “Outpost” in the extremely remote village of Sumbawanga in western Tanzania not far from the Zambian border, and we will soon launch our second “UFP Outpost” in the Katavi region.
Will you help us?
An angel donor has generously provided a $25,000 matching grant to fund UFP Phase 1. Please consider a tax-deductible gift of any size to help us reach our $25,000 goal so that every dollar donated can be DOUBLED!
CLICK HERE TO GIVE
or send a check to Unite The World With Africa Foundation, 49 Whitney Street, Westport, CT 06880.
Unite’s Program Director Anty Marche (with headscarf), UFP Director Upendo Kiondo (front in pink), Environmental Scientist Clara Wilson Ngowi (back right in pink), and Logistics Leader Gaudence Moshy (front left) traveled across large swaths of Tanzania in January 2021 meeting with small-scale farmers and Unite Scholars and their families to assess the quality of crops and establish key partnerships for UFP.
THE SECRET SAUCE:Hermetic Storage Technology (HST) AgroZ® Bag
Designed and manufactured by A to Z Textile Mills Limited in Arusha, Tanzania, the AgroZ® Bag are “multi-layered hermetic storage technology bags designed for the storage of maize, sorghum, rice, millet, and beans to protect against insects pests without using any pesticide dusts.” A single 100kg bag can safely store food items for more than a year and be reused up to three seasons, providing farmers with a secure, portable, and affordable option through which to store their harvests, for personal use and to use for cash crops. Unite is excited about UFP’s partnership with A to Z, which is one of the largest manufacturing companies in East Africa. In addition to providing the AgroZ® Bag, A to Z will also produce UFP’s packaging materials and provide agro-business training materials and expertise for our Unite Scholars and their families as well as all UFP partner farmers. A to Z is most widely known for its design and manufacturing of the Olyset®Net insecticide-treated mosquito net. Unite has worked with A to Z in past years to supply villages with these bed nets. A to Z also partners with such leading international organizations as the CDC, Acumen Fund, PSI, and USAID, among many others, in the global fight against malaria.
WHO BENEFITS FROM THE UNITE FOOD PROGRAM?
Small-Scale Farmers
Receive a secure market for their organic crops at an above-market price; two extra AgroZ® Bag (gifted by Unite) to use to store their crops to provide food for their families and to serve as a “bank” for future needs and emergencies; and trainings in agrobusiness optimization techniques and approaches.
Unite Scholars & their Families
Receive, as possible, a market for their cash crops; access to UFP Outpost agro-business machinery (rice & maize mills, tillers, tractors) as possible; and real-world experience in agrobusiness by working with UFP in various capacities.
Entrepreneurial Tanzanian Women
Unite Food Program is and owned and chiefly operated by Tanzanian women. And while we do have a few great men involved, UFP aims to employ and empower as many women as possible throughout the entire UFP supply chain... Farm to table.
Unite Brave Widows
Receive employment opportunities to assist with UFP food processing, packaging, and distribution. They will also sell UFP products in their Unite Brave Widow storefront.
Consumers
Receive organic, high quality & affordable UFP food items, all grown and stored with no chemicals or pesticides
Unite the World With Africa Foundation
Receives a percentage of UFP’s net profits through UFP’s corporate social responsibility campaign (CSR), empowering Unite to further our mission.
Unite Scholar Pili Gabanza is pictured here working her family’s shamba (farm) in the Katavi region of Western Tanzania. The Unite Food Program (UFP) will soon provide a secure market for Pili’s family’s maize and rice harvest at a fair-market price. UFP will also provide them with air-tight, pest-resistant grain bags in which they can safely hold back and store a portion of their crops to feed themselves throughout the year and to serve as a “emergency” fund (food that can be held and later sold, when prices rise, to deal with any family needs or emergencies).
UNITE FOOD PROGRAM OUTPOST #1: Sumbawanga, Rukwa Region, Western Tanzania
In December 2019, 22-year-old orphan Baraka Sadam Saul applied for a spot in our Unite Scholars Program. Unfortunately, he scored Division 2 on his Form 4 leaving exam (Unite requires Division 1), so he was not chosen. However, Unite’s Program Director Anty Marche sensed great potential in this young man and, independent of Unite, she began investing in Baraka, little by little, over time. After receiving and repaying many multiple small loans (of $25-$50 each), Baraka was able to purchase a small maize mill machine to fill a huge need in his rural village of Sumbawanga where there was no mill to process the local crops and the local farmers were suffering.
The UFP team visited Baraka and his young brother Uwezo in January 2021 (see their first in-person meeting here) to draw plans, clear the land, purchase supplies, and begin laying the foundation for UFP’s first official “Outpost” food processing plant, storage, and sales location. Inside the now completed structure (below), Baraka and Uwezo now operate their maize mill and a new UFP rice processing machine. The building also includes a bedroom for Baraka and Uwezo as well as a small kitchen and toilet. Baraka and Uwezo have provided full-time employment to three more young men and, to date, have served more than 600 customers from six surrounding villages. Currently we are in the process of purchasing a UFP power tiller machine that will “live” at this UFP Outpost to be used by Baraka and Uwezo as well as by Unite Scholars when they are home over school holidays. The tiller will facilitate more efficient farming of surrounding shambas as well as the transportation of crops, allowing the UFP team to “pull” in new customers and further grow this small-but-already-thriving business.
I extend my sincerest thanks to every person who has supported Unite The World With Africa Foundation over the years; to our team of advisors for their time, generosity, and expertise; to our Board of Directors for their remarkable commitment and for making it possible for 100% of every donor dollar to be allocated directly to our programs in Africa; and to the courageous souls I have met along the way who have given up everything to live and work on the frontlines. There are billions of people on Planet Earth in desperate need, and those we serve are most worthy and deserving. They—and you—fuel my passion and help me resist any occasional tug of fatigue or allure of apathy.
May we continue with our individual and collective efforts to love, heal, and honor one another and ourselves. The stakes are high. All outcomes are possible. Thank you for your time and for your continued support of Unite.
Yours in service,
Anne Wells
UNITE THE WORLD WITH AFRICA FOUNDATION, INC. IS A 501C3 TAX-EXEMPT PUBLIC CHARITY. EIN: 47-2329890.
CONTACT: ANNE WELLS, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR ANNE@UNITEAFRICAFOUNDATION.ORG * 314.239.3997 USA
Souces: OPEC Fund for International Development & Borgen Project