Book launch highlights success of Africa Bridge project in Tanzania

Dar es Salaam. The launch of Barry Childs’ book, “And The Children Shall Lead Us,” in Dar es Salaam shed light on the success of the Africa Bridge Project in Tanzania.

This initiative aims to lift vulnerable children out of poverty by providing them with accommodation, education, and healthcare support.

As such, he said, the book also complements the same goal for which he received compliments from researchers at the University of Texas in the United States through their Ray Marshall Centre.

Read: How Tanzania can break the chains of poverty

“Writing this book and starting the project are the result of a study conducted by the University of Texas in the United States through their Ray Marshall Research Centre. For sure, the mode used by the project will bring about positive results in the lives of vulnerable Tanzanian children,” he said.

He told the gathering at the launch of his 168-page book that so far the project has reached about 7,700 children in six wards and 37 villages in Rungwe District, Mbeya Region.

“These vulnerable children have been saved from extreme poverty by providing them with accommodation, education, and health insurance as part of the Africa Bridge Project in the country,” he said. He said he returned to Tanzania, where he grew up as a child, after 35 years and felt bad when he found rural people grappling with extreme poverty, so he decided to start an aid organisation to alleviate the incidence of extreme poverty.

“Most of the people I grew up with in the Arusha Region between 1944 and 1962 were still almost as poor as before, and some had already lost their lives due to extreme poverty. So, I decided to write this book to develop a positive attitude in rural people and help them, especially children,” he said at the weekend.

In curbing extreme poverty in rural areas, the Africa Bridge project is conducted in such a way that it involves the children themselves and their parents as well as the community through village committees so that they can help in the upbringing of children from home, school, and community settings.

According to the project coordinator, Mr Kelvin Ngonyani, the book had an exciting narrative and aimed at uplifting rural, vulnerable children out of extreme poverty and imparting to them the knowledge of sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurship and improving their lives.

Read: How Tanzania can translate growth into poverty reduction

The book, which is a fascinating account of 23 years of Africa Bridge, a sustainable and cooperative agricultural model transforming rural villages, is based on both field experience and academic research.

It raises awareness of its potential to lift the most vulnerable children out of poverty in the country.

Mr Childs, who grew up in the country, left for further studies in South Africa and later returned home to help his homeland.