Our Story
Mboni ya Vijana was founded around ten years ago by Benedicto Hosea, the son of illiterate subsistence farmers in Zeze.
When Benedicto was a child, crop harvests were good, and families could feed themselves. But as the village grew, more and more people tried to make a living from the land. Damaging farming practices led to poor harvests and widespread hunger.
Through a twist of fate, Benedicto was given the opportunity to continue his education and go to college, where he learnt about the effects of land degradation and climate change.
College was hard as he struggled to survive on a small grant. His fellow students nicknamed him “Lampard” after the footballer famous for his long passes, because Benedicto could not afford to eat every day, and went with long gaps between meals. But these challenges made him even more determined to fight hunger and inequality in his community.
Benedicto returned to Zeze and founded Mboni ya Vijana in 2014. He has remained dedicated to the initiative ever since.
In 2018 Britain Tanzania Society sponsored him to visit the United Kingdom and talk at parliament about his work. He was also awarded a Commonwealth Point of Light Award by Her Majesty the Queen.
What We Do
MVG now has various projects carrying out Benedicto’s vision – from empowering women through a microfinance scheme, community honey projects, school gardens to feed the students, climate education and training farmers on sustainable agricultural practices, planting trees to take climate action and restore our land, entrepreneurship training, to installing water pumps in schools and communities!
You can find out more about our work in these areas on our pages (and keep up to date on our News page!).
Benedicto is a local representative of the Tanzania Development Trust (TDT), and as such we work closely with TDT on various projects including getting access to clean and safe water and our tree planting project (you can purchase trees for us to plant from the shop on their website!).
