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Restoring Smiles - Changing Lives
A dental & development charity working towards a world free from dental pain
Volunteering » Bukumbi Volunteers
The Maskini Community in Mwanza, Tanzania
We are committed to helping the poor and disabled (Maskini) community in Mwanza. These people, many of whom suffer with leprosy, live either on the streets or in Bukumbi Care Centre. Our Community Development programme is centred around Bukumbi Care Centre (BCC).
We are working with them to meet their basic needs - things which, in the Western world, we may simply take for granted:
- Access to clean water
- A nutritionally balanced diet
- Hygienic toilets and showers
- Somewhere secure to store any personal effects
- Access to medical and dental treatment
- A gathering place
- Any means to generate an income of their own.
Our ongoing programme has already gone a long way to meet these needs, restoring dignity and raising self-esteem along the way.
Bukumbi Care Centre
Bukumbi Care Centre (BCC), a centre for the disabled and People Affected by Leprosy (PAL) was built outside of Mwanza in 1980 after the streets of the city were ‘cleansed’ and those seen as unsightly or with disabilities who were living on the streets were moved to BCC. The centre was built to provide a place where the community could be housed together as a joint project by the Government and an aid organisation.
From a place of squalor, insufficient food and desperation, Bukumbi is now a place of hope, a place where people can feel comfortable to be together and a place where the community cares for each other.
