MYODA - give kids a better future!

Hello everybody!

During our Sabbatical Year we are having the opportunity to volunteer here at Mkuza Youth Development Association (MYODA) a non-governmental, non-profit youth organization placed in Kibaha District outside Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

MYODA is teaching the youth the value of education, the power of the individual and inspiring them to reach for their goals.

MYODA is aiming to help the community through educating the youth.

Mkuza Youth Development Association was founded in 2003 by Obedy Kuguru. As child he had the lucky chance to get support from a German family for his education. From that point he decided to give this possibility to other children. When he came back to Kibaha after finishing school, he was met by the same reality that most of the Tanzanian youth face: The lack of education and work opportunities. In the light of this he started two new projects. The first project was concerning small kids, the second concerning youths.

In January 2003 Mkuza Nursery School opened. The school was meant for orphans and otherwise vulnerable children in the community.

In July the same year Kuguru in alliance with others started gathering young people and making activities for them. In this way they created jobs for the youth, e.g. by making bricks to sell. Unfortunately they did not have the necessary ,machinery, and had to stop the activity, because they could not make enough money to continue the work. After a year they stopped, but Mkuza Youth Development Association was born. The money earned from selling the bricks, was used for renting an office and to pay the licence for the formal registration as an organization, which MYODA finally accompliced in 2005 as:

Mkuza youth development association (MYODA) on 2.11.2005 under the registration number: SO.NO.13199.

Focus areas

Since MYODA’s formal registration in 2005, the organization has focused on three main areas:

1) sustainable youth development

2) poverty eradication and

3) fighting against HIV/AIDS

The work concerning sustainable youth development has been done at Mkuza Nursery School, by providing pre-form-one courses for students entering secondary school, and by conducting seminars on entrepreneur skills for youths. Further more MYODA in May 2010 opened a new youth center, Vision Academic Center, where youths can be taught English, Math and other school subjects, and hopefully soon computer skills. For now we unfortunately do not have a room, but soon when we finished our new class rooms, we can continue with our work.

Since development and poverty eradication is two areas that are very depending on each other, a lot of the activities are similar. In addition MYODA teaches entrepreneurship skills, which the people can use to develop theme selves, MYODA runs Vicoba seminars (Village Community Bank) to teach about micro financing and Myoda runs a Hot Culture programm, to teach farming and selling vegetables for the community. To support women we teach gender equality.

Fighting against HIV/AIDS has been carried out on different levels. MYODA provides HIV/AIDS workshops and seminars. In addition to providing prevention knowledge, MYODA do home visits to families with HIV-positive members and supports theme to keep on a normal life.