Welcome to Shanga
Shanga is a community of rural farms with farmers scattered amid dense, green hillsides. It is a beautiful but forbidding landscape and the infrastructure here is poor. There are few roads and none are paved. There’s no electricity or running water. Most children only attend school up to grade four and literacy rates are low. Homes are basic mud structures. Access to healthcare is sparse.
When our team arrived for a survey in early 2018, we were welcomed by a community primed for change. They met us with genuine concern for the current situation and an open invitation to partner with them to build a brighter future. And, as we saw in Cyimbili in 2008 and onwards, the coffee farms revealed themselves as a perfect place to begin.
Our mission in Shanga
This multi-year engagement in Shanga will bear fruit in development projects, community building, Biblical training, and mentoring. We will be working in partnership with local farmers to improve their coffee yields through improved farming techniques and establish a successful coffee Co-op. By vastly improving their harvests and empowering the community to work together in processing the beans (effectively taking three middle-men out of the process), we will create a better economic model for their families. We hope it can go beyond sustainable and truly flourish – raising people out of poverty, adding dignity, and allowing them to give back to their community. For the farmers and their families, our desire is for them to find restored hope in the promise of their land, as well as in the promises of God.
In the surrounding community we will work with local officials to improve educational opportunities, build essential infrastructure, support micro finance, and develop centers that can provide services and foster community. And, for the local churches, we want to bring additional leadership training, helping them to be more deeply rooted in Biblical truth, active in outreach, with a growing missional mindset that may lead them to step outside their community and reach others.
The coffee may be the economic engine for the community’s transformation, but partnership with the local church is the cornerstone of this work.
It’s a big vision. As one of our team members, Kelly Gallagher, said: “There are days when this mountain seems way too tall.” Without trust and reliance on God, it is.
Current Needs
Economy
Washing Station $120,000
Building a robust and high-capacity coffee washing station.
A washing station is key to the farming community becoming self-sufficient. The ability to present a higher quality bean to the market cuts out the middle-men who consume so much of the value of their crop. This one substantial investment has the potential to more than double the wages paid to a farmer.
Our hope is to aim for the 2019 harvest, which means the washing station needs to be in place by Feb 2019 to process the beans.
Community
Friend to Farmers
200 Sponsors @ $100/month
- Providing fertilizer, mulch, and new coffee tree seedlings to farmers
- Basic necessities for families including medical insurance and farming tools
- Seeds and fertilizer for family subsistence crops
- Education opportunities for the entire family (I.E. literacy programs, health education, financial programs)
Eternity
Community Hope Center $60,000
A central gathering place for the community and local church with possible activities including:
- Bible training
- Pastoral leadership training
- Micro loan and women’s small business training
- Literacy training
- Vocational trades
- Children’s daycare
Giving
A new washing station on one side, the Hope Center on the other, and God’s Word stirring in the hearts of the people – this is how we begin to revive the Shanga community.
Address
PO Box 1384 | Wayne, NJ 07474-1384
Call Us
973.907.6688
Email Us
info@h4th.org