Road’s project in Pare mountains – Tanzania

Kilimanjaro Hope Organization – KIHO, our guest local NGO, has already finished a project related to the restoration of a road. This initiative, which has been supported by the World Food Program – WFP, basically aimed at the enlargement of the road that crosses Pare mountains.

In order to understand the importance of this project, it is necessarily to know that Pare villages are distributed around several mountains which rise to 2.463 m, thus some villages are almost inaccessible by car or other transport. Before the road’s project, the inhabitants had to walk two or three hours to arrive to the closer dispensary, and have even walked several kilometers carring heavy provisions from the town.

This project has been an essential improvement for the rural communities due to improving road’s quality, Pare communities avoid to be isolated. It is known that in this global world the isolation is an critical threat for development in rural areas. Basic needs like medicins, food or scholars books do not arrive to rural villages without good roads, in other words, the lack of communication routes implyes a damage in rural livelihood.

This project has involved local government, rural communities and WFP. While the local government has been offering the technical assistance, rural communities have worked in the restoration of the road every week and WFP has supplied food for these local families who have participated in the road’s construction. In addition, KIHO has been monitoring the project and supporting rural communities.

The most impressive point of this project has been the self-organization of rural communities in order to work in the road every week. Two representative members of KIHO have been selected in every villages, a man and a woman. Both have been the responsibles to communicate the proper operation in the road to KIHO every month. Furthemore, the road has been distributed amongs the most disadvantaged families, who have gone to renovate the road every week.

Pauline, Johannes and me could have seen all the families working together in every village; women carrying stones, men breaking big rocks and young people cleaning the road. How have they managed this perfect organization? Easily, the secret is to work for a common benefit and to know that his new road means a better life for all of them, these are the best keys to success in a project. During the road’s project I have been awared that the community meaning is a powerful tool to achieve development in rural areas.

Núria.