Nicky Teverson
luhuvilo.charity@gmail.com
Registered Charity No. 1175276
In 1986 I was a young priest recently ordained and was travelling around Dar es Salam. I saw children living on the street who ran away from me. Eventually they came back and I asked them about their life and why they were on the street. They had different reasons, some had lost one or both of their parents and they were from all over Tanzania, Dodoma, Iringa, Singida. I was deeply moved and started to pray with the children to find if it was possible for God to touch people to help these children; to find them a house; keep them safe; give them an education and the love of God; as now there is no-one to take care of them. I cried out and prayed.
The vision stayed with me through the years and I visited it frequently in prayer. In 2014, I was elected Bishop of South West Tanganyika and I left my parish in Zanzibar to take up the post. I felt that now was the right time to find this place of refuge for the children; to set up the House of Luhuvilo.
Bishop Matthew W. Mhagama
The most vulnerable are rejected by the family and are called ‘roaming children’ or ‘street children’. It is these children that The House of Luhuvilo aims to reach.
• 40% of children in Tanzania are orphaned.
The definition of an orphan in Tanzania is a child who is:
• Unwanted and abandoned
• Unplanned and neglected
• Orphaned from the death of one or both parents either through HIV, child birth or disease
• Caring Grandparents die leaving child
• Poverty is a major causative factor for children being rejected
© The House of Luhuvilo 2018