Kimbilio Program in Morogoro

Kimbilio Program has started for Women 's shelter and Education Center. Why? Ruth Mmari saw as working for women and children in Morogoro Evangelical Lutheran Church, many drawbacks and miseries among women due to old traditions like female circumcisions, family violence, subjugations, and other mishandling and inhuman behaviors. It is also difficult for girls to go to the school, because they are needed for household-work. With the support of Finnish Lempäälä congregation and YMCA Kimbilio Program was able to start and Ruth Mmari could see her dream come true.

Lempäälä YMCA promised to build a Ukumbi (community hall), a house for a guard, one Kimbilio shelter, a house for a housekeeper. So Kimbilio program involves a complex of buildings. The vision started broadening and the whole education center is planned to be built. Lempäälä congregation promised to support Kimbilio Program for three years. Ruth Mmari and Irja Aro-Heinilä in next foto.

Jakob Moreto, Bishop for Morogoro Diocese, visited Lempäälä congregation in autumn 2012 and provided all his support for Kimbilio Program. This program has started from the needs of local people living in Morogoro and Ruth Mmari has been their voice. Kimbilio program is local people's effort and they have collected fundings for the drawings and calculations of buildings in Morogoro Diocese and acquired building materials, they have discussed and communicated about this program in many situations. This Kimbilio program is strongly based on local needs and opinions, local people are going to be used for building Kimbilio complex of houses, and local material and knowledge are also going to be used whenever possible.

The marriage couple Aro-Heinilä Irja and Veikko are responsible for communication in Finland and both of them are speaking Swahili. Veikko has experiences of constructions of buildings like churches and water systems in Kenya and Tanzania.

Kimbilio Shelter in Morogoro

Kimbilio in Swahili means shelter, haven. The idea to start building Kimbilo House, a safe haven for abused women Tanzanian women, was a dream of Ruth Mmari working for children and women in Evangelical Lutheran Church in Morogoro Diocese in Tanzania. She visited Lempäälä congregation in Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church in Autumn 2011 and inspired Finnish people for her dream. Finnish YMCA took this program and the local partner is Diocese Morogoro's work among Tanzanian women. This shelter should be finished in 2014.

This vision and project is soundly based in a grassroots movement. The need for the house has arisen from discussion and conversations held among women of the diocese over the course of many years. By their own initiative, architectural plans were drawn for the centre, women have raised money to start building - having purchase thousands of bricks in order to start construction, the vision was shared within the diocese as well as with international partners.
Ukumbi (community hall) is rising up in the same site and this will be ready in spring 2013. Running women's shelter will need resources and the plan is to get incomes by renting this Ukumbi. Also an education center and a school is intended to be built.

Tanzania, in Swahili Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania, is located in East Africa and its population is 46.22 million in 2011, capital city Dodoma and largest city Dar es Salaam. It is a peaceful country having a tropical climate and good natural resources.