„Many small people who in many small places do many small things can alter the face of the world.“ This is an African wisdom. It shows us how important each individual can be who wants to make a difference. You don’t have to be powerful or rich to change something. It is precisely the many small things that may seem unimportant to us that can make a big difference.
With the help of this project we want to have a well drilled in a small village called Mihale in Tanzania, East Africa. The lack of rainfall due to climate change and a steadily growing population pose major problems for the residents of Mihale, which they cannot overcome without our support. Therefore we ask for your help. Be one of these many „small“ people who, with a small contribution, can change something together! Please help!
Give a helping hand for Mihale
Mihale is a small village in northwestern Tanzania in the buffer zone of the Serengeti National Park. Tourists seldom if ever get lost in this region. About 1500 people currently live in Mihale. Most are poor and try to make ends meet by farming or raising livestock. The farmers and ranchers are dependent on the rainy season (early March to late May and mid-September to mid-December). However, since climate change is already clearly evident here, the rainy seasons are no longer as reliable and productive, which endangers the already short cultivation period and a successful harvest.
There are two schools in Mihale, a primary school with an integrated kindergarten and a secondary school. Primary school (1st to 7th grade) + kindergarten is currently attended by 874 girls and boys, and secondary school (8th to 10th grade) is currently attended by 326 girls and boys. Meals for these children at school are organized through food donations from their own families. Each family contributes as much as it can spare. It is primarily about feeding the children and not about balanced and varied meals. That’s why there is ugali, a traditional chewy porridge made from ground corn, every day. For the younger children, up to the 3rd grade, there is Uji, a kind of more liquid porridge also made from ground corn. There is no government support for school meals.
The lives of Mihale’s residents are significantly influenced by the rainy and dry seasons. During the rainy season, the fields are cultivated, the cattle find sufficient green fodder and the residents can use the collected rainwater for cooking, drinking and washing. In the dry season, however, this changes dramatically. The nearest water point is 3 km away. Mihale’s residents then have to walk 3 km there and 3 km back to fetch water for their daily needs. The heavy water canisters have to be carried home by hand or on the head. If you are lucky enough to own a bicycle, you use it for transport. In order to ensure that the elderly or sick residents of Mihale, who have no family members in the village, also get water, a schedule was drawn up which regulates the water procurement by other villagers. The dry season is also a time of suffering for the cattle, as there is hardly any food for them.
With your help, we want to give the residents of Mihale year-round access to clean water by drilling a well. This would have a lasting positive effect on people’s lives and would mean the following:
– Fewer illnesses caused by drinking contaminated water
– Effective use of fertile fields
– Ensuring sufficient food for humans and animals
– Laying out a school garden to feed the pupils
– Trading crop yields on the markets
– Creation of new jobs (agriculture, trade, transport, local shops, etc.)
– A secure income through jobs, which, among other things, can also pay for visits to the doctor (only very few Tanzanians have health insurance)
– the chance for some children to go to a better school to get a good job and support their families
To ensure permanent clean water in Mihale, we want to have a well drilled in the village. A hydrogeological and geophysiological report that has already been carried out revealed a large groundwater reservoir at a depth of around 170 m. In order to obtain sufficient water to feed the residents of Mihale and for agricultural purposes, a well must be drilled to a depth of at least 170 m for an 8 inch (20.32 cm) thick pipe. A sufficiently strong pump, which is operated with solar energy, is installed and a 10,000 liter tank is connected. The drilling permit and the water use permit have already been granted by the relevant authorities. Cost estimates were obtained from several well construction companies. It includes all expected costs from site preparation to drilling, all materials, pump, solar array, pump testing, water analysis etc. With all estimates obtained the expected cost is approximately $30,000 (28,000 Euros). That is of course a huge chunk of money! But together we can make the seemingly impossible possible. The magic word is CROWD FUNDING!
With crowd funding (swarm financing), many donors enable the realization of a wide variety of projects by „donating“ small amounts that would otherwise not be possible on their own. Since we, Susann Luening and Christopher Maligeri, are private individuals and not a registered association, we unfortunately cannot issue donation receipts. From a legal point of view, your donation then runs as a „gift“ and cannot be deducted from taxes. We want to approach this project as uncomplicated and unbureaucratic as possible in order to implement it promptly and efficiently. We work completely transparent. You can view the soil report and the cost estimates. Your „donations“ will be collected in an account in Germany and then paid directly to the well construction company in Tanzania. We use the crowd-funding platform gofundme.com to collect your “donations”. Gofundme is a well-known fundraising platform with an excellent security system that allows you to make a worry-free online donation in an uncomplicated manner. Please read carefully anyway! Gofundme retains 2.9% + €0.25 per transfer. A secure payment is guaranteed for this. The rest of your „donation“ goes directly into the project. If you don’t use Online-Banking and you want to „donate“ please contact us on www.susilu@web.de. We send you the account details.
If you are now asking yourself „Who are Christopher Maligeri and Susann Luening and why are they doing all this?“ We would like to introduce ourselves.
„I’m Christopher Julius Maligeri. As the third born of seven children, I grew up in Mihale. I attended Mihale primary school and had the privilege of completing secondary school in Bunda (the nearest town). Until the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, I worked as a tourist guide. The pandemic has brought the tourism industry to a complete standstill and thousands have lost their jobs with me. The tourism industry is slowly recovering, but is nowhere near the pre-corona level. My parents are farmers. If I remember back in the 90’s we could live from farming. The rainy seasons were productive, we had sufficient crop yields and were able to cultivate the fields efficiently. At that time Mihale had about 400 inhabitants.
Today the situation is quite different. 1500 people now live in Mihale. The lack of rain and the rapidly growing population pose unsolvable problems for the villagers. Less and less arable land can be cultivated due to the lack of water, while at the same time the number of people to be fed is increasing rapidly. In Mihale alone, more than 200 hectares of farmland cannot be farmed because there is no water. Many young men try their luck in the cities to earn some money and support their families. But these are then also missing as workers in the fields in the villages. That’s why the children have to work in the fields after school or help fetch water instead of studying for school or just being allowed to be children. Right now it’s a battle against windmills that we can’t win without help.
I told Susann about these problems. She was immediately interested and we started looking for solutions. Then we came up with crowd funding. Susann said „There are so many helpful and interested people in the world who will certainly support us.“ So we started this project. When I told my father about it, he asked me in disbelief, „Am I dreaming or is this really happening?“ I hope so much that with your help, Mihale’s well will not just remain a dream, but one day it will become a reality.“
„My name is Susann Luening. I live near Wismar in north-eastern Germany and work as a paramedic in the emergency services. In October 2021 I flew to Tanzania to fulfill a long-cherished dream of climbing Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. Tanzania and it‘s people immediately cast a spell over me and gave me a completely new perspective on life. I met a lot of interesting people there, some of whom, like Christopher Maligeri, have now become good friends. This gave me an insight into the lives of people away from the tourist regions, for which I am very grateful. Many of them live in very poor conditions and have to struggle to support themselves and their families. Many young men from the remote villages leave their families to find work in the big cities and support their relatives. Since they sometimes live hundreds of kilometers apart and bus fares are relatively expensive, family members have often been unable to visit each other for many months, sometimes even years. One of these young men is Christopher Maligeri, who has not seen his two young children for a year and a half and misses them both very much.
Despite all these adversities, one has the feeling that the people of Tanzania are happy. I think Tanzanians are happy about the few things they have and not sad about the many things they don’t have. There is a lot of laughter and you are immediately welcomed with open arms and without fear of contact. It’s so nice to see how the children tell you with big bright eyes that they want to be teachers, doctors, engineers or even pilots one day. And at the same time, it’s heartbreaking to know that their dreams are unlikely to come true.
I know that a project like this is just a drop in the ocean when you consider how many people live in the most difficult circumstances in Tanzania alone. I would like to support all of them to give them a better future. Unfortunately that is not possible. But for the 1500 people of Mihale, and the generations to come, together we can create something really big and meaningful. With your „donation“, no matter how small, we can give the people of Mihale a real chance for a more independent and self empowering life with new perspectives. The well for Mihale is not a project to make already rich people even richer! The well is help for self-help! Let’s give the people of Mihale a real chance! And who knows, maybe one day one of the children will become a teacher, doctor, engineer or pilot. Why not?“
On behalf of Mihale’s residents, we would like to thank you for your help. By „donating“, or even just sharing the link on this website, you have become part of something really important and meaningful. Also from us, Susann and Christopher, a big thanks to you for putting your trust in us. We will of course keep you informed of any progress.
Thank you!
A special thanks also to Cathbert Augustino Ringo for creating this website.
If you have any questions please contact us on www.susilu@web.de or www.maligerichris@gmail.com
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