#GivingTuesday 2020

Village Life Outreach Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Cincinnati, Ohio whose mission is to unite communities to promote Life, Health and Education. By partnering with the villages of Roche, Nyambogo, and Burere in the Rorya District of Tanzania, East Africa, Village Life implements sustainable projects to fight poverty and improve health, water quality and quantity, and educational outcomes.

Village Life is helping to create a new generation of global citizens who think about sustainable impact. Their power to impact lives is driven by committees of experts and volunteers — in Cincinnati, and in Tanzania — who work together to ensure projects and goals are sourced from and aligned with community needs. The Lessons from Tanzania of love, global citizenship, and social responsibility are shared with the Cincinnati community and beyond through partnerships and service-learning initiatives at the University of Cincinnati. 

• Clean Water - Village Life partner communities identified the lack of clean and safe water as the most severe problem in the region. Together with community leadership, they implemented major water distribution systems in Roche, Nyambogo and Burere which provide clean and safe water to thousands of residents. These water distribution centers are completely community run and focus on self-sustaining systems that enable entrepreneurship. Each system extends well water to tap stands in sub villages and schools, with a goal of ensuring individuals are no more than 1 kilometer away from a water source (World Health Organization). Village Life partners with Engineers without Borders - University of Cincinnati Chapter and Engineers without Borders- Cincinnati Professional Chapter to offer international experiences to students and implement our water projects on the ground.
• Roche Health Center - Village Life has partnered with UC Health and DAAP at UC to construct and open a free-standing primary health care facility which provides the first-ever access to permanent healthcare to a region of 20,000 people in rural Tanzania. They continue to expand efforts at Roche, enhancing healthcare programming and growing the facility. Visitors from the U.S, including UC healthcare students, residents, faculty, and professionals, work alongside Tanzanian healthcare professionals for bidirectional learning and maximum impact.
• Mobile Field Clinics - Village Life also leads Mobile Outreach Field Clinics which give teams of UC students, faculty, and professionals in the U.S. invaluable global health experience by partnering with Tanzanian providers to improve acute and preventative health care for thousands of people. To date, approximately 700 individuals from across the United States have traveled with us to participate in mobile field clinics in Tanzania, seeing tens of thousands of patients. Most of these travelers come from UC Health and the University of Cincinnati Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Allied Health Services.
• School Feeding Program - Children in Village Life partner communities struggling with hunger found it difficult to focus in the classroom. Developed by students at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Allied Health Sciences, Village Life's school nutrition program feeds over 3,00 students across 7 primary schools in the region. Since the implementation of this program we have seen higher test scores, increased attendance in primary schools, and increased enrollment in secondary schools.
• UC Student Involvement - UC Students can get involved with Village Life in so many ways! We offer full time and part time internships with our office in Cincinnati. Students can co-op either in the US or in Tanzania. We've supervised several Capstone projects for students who are interested in digging deep on a particular topic. We also co-teach a Service Learning Collaboratory class that any student can enroll for. Students in the College of Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy can also travel to Tanzania with us for class credit. We have options for every student- research, direct service, and international travel.

UC and UC Health employees can give via payroll deduction today!