In August of 2007, Good Shepherd embarked on an effort of empowering an African village out of extreme poverty into self-sufficiency. At Masses on a weekend in August, 2007 a goal of raising half a million dollars over five years to support the Mbola village cluster through the Millennium Promise organization was announced to parishioners. Good Shepherd parishioners met the goal in half the time!
The Millennium Villages Project network included 80 Millennium Villages in 14 sites throughout 10 African countries. (A “cluster” is any site with more than one village.) Good Shepherd sent $400,000 to this project supporting the Mbola cluster village. After being informed that this Mbola cluster was fully funded, the final $100,000 was used by Millennium for the Mwandama cluster located in southern Malawi, near the town of Zomba.
We recently received updates on the current success in these two areas: The Millennium Villages Project in Mbola (Tanzania) and the Millennium Village of Mwandama (Malawi).